Recognition of disabilities is becoming far more mainstream than it was even 5 years ago. Unfortunately because there isn’t daily exposure, many individuals and businesses overlook the needs of the few. Because of this, it’s pleasing to see a company like Google continuing to bring accessibility to those who live with impairments daily.
The latest from Google is Live relay — similar to the National Relay service in Australia.
We mean to complement them with Live Relay as an additional option for the contexts where it can help most
On the surface, Live Relay looks pretty simple, but the AI involved in not just overlaying a chat window for the user to interact with their phone call, but present contextually appropriate and pre-prepared responses is amazing. The interface for Live Relay as well as all of the transcribing (perhaps an advancement with the background use of Live Transcribe) is done on your device which keeps the conversation private.
Users who engage the Live Relay service, get a chat interface in front of them when a call comes in. Google assistant announces that this is occurring and how it will work to the person on the other end of the phone and then begins taking the incoming voice and showing it as text to the user. Replies are as simple as using one of the contextually offered responses at a single tap, or typing your own response. It’s a huge leap forward in giving genuine accessibility to all users, in a real time conversation vs having to wait for text or email responses to come through.
While Live Relay isn’t ready for consumer use yet, they’re working hard to deliver better use of smartphone and accessibility to communication for users who need it.
