As a part of the September 2024 update, Google announced a connecting theme of ‘exploration’ where five new Android features including “Circle to Search” and “Gemini Talkback”. have been introduced Eyes-wide Open That’s not huge substance-changing stuff, but, as the connecting theme of ‘exploration’ suggests, these are all designed towards helping people more easily find what they want to find.
Beginning with the head, Android’s TalkBack feature is to be infused with machine learning. It allows blind people and other people with low vision to browse the Internet using the contents of the pictures displayed on the screen as voices describe them. Hence, the future descriptions will be made possible by Gemini.
Circle to Search to know which music you are hearing
Shazam is very effective and useful in identifying music one may catch from radio, TVs, bars, or even from peoples’ phones but if you have a phone with circle Search, the best thing is to use the Artificial intelligence-powered feature instead of the Shazam as you seek to find a song from a bar, your car, restaurants while watching a concert or even hearing a song or a tune on social media platforms.
For your supported phone, all you need to do is to long press home button or navigation bar, then type ‘Circle to Search’ and hit the music button just beside the Google search button at the right bottom of the screen. You should be able to receive the name of the track, the artist and a link to the song on YouTube in the Google search results.
Gemini’s TalkBack feature
Alongside Circle to Search for music, Google also introduced Gemini TalkBack: it is the screen reader that comes preloaded on most Android devices; and describes what is happening on the device verbally so individuals who cannot see well or are blind can use their device without having to look at it constantly. You can also touch or slide around the screen and TalkBack will announce the text, buttons, and items on the screen and the TalkBack itself may give the next possible action to take.
When it comes to accessing digital materials users who are blind and the ones with low vision face a lot of constraints. Google’s talk back is an accessibility feature in the smartphone to assist with by speaking the items on the screen aloud. Well, the new update, powered by Google’s deep learning called Gemini, means that TalkBack will now be able to describe images in much more detail.
When viewing photos, websites with products to be purchased, or friends’ pictures on social networks—finally, TalkBack can describe the picture and, in detail if necessary. For example instead of referring to ‘a person’, it could go ahead and describe a person’s attire, the environment he/she is in, or things that he/she is doing.
Learn more: Circle to Search