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Google has unveiled a suite of new accessibility features for Android and Chrome, coinciding with Global Accessibility Awareness Day. These updates aim to enhance user experiences, particularly for individuals with visual or hearing impairments.
Gemini AI Enhances TalkBack
Android’s TalkBack screen reader now embeds Gemini AI to deliver detailed image descriptions even when no alt text exists, and users can pose interactive queries such as “What color is the bike?” or “Who is in this photo?”
This builds on last year’s initial Gemini integration by adding a conversational layer, turning passive narration into an exploratory tool for visually impaired users. The feature will debut on devices running Android 15 and later, with localized rollouts beginning in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.
Chrome New Features
Google Chrome has added Optical Character Recognition (OCR) support for scanned PDFs, enabling screen readers to access and read their content. Additionally, Chrome for Android now offers customizable Page Zoom, allowing users to adjust text size for better readability without disrupting the page layout. Google is calling it ChromeVox, which also comes with a Dictation feature for voice input. However, this is not all.
Other Notable Features
By means of Project Euphonia’s GitHub page, Google also aims to give developers access to their open-source repositories, therefore enhancing the worldwide tool ecosystem. Developers can train their models for several speech patterns or create customized audio tools for research.
With the help of Centre for Digital Language Inclusion (CDLI), Google is also eyeing increasing their speech recognition technology for non-English speakers in Africa by creating open-source datasets in 10 African languages.
