captions

It's Google I/O 2013 time, and that means revamped Maps, subscription music, Glass apps, and giant robotic arms!

At a Google I/O fete Wednesday night in San Francisco, partygoers took in sights including a shirtless Billy Idol, an electronic dance floor, and multiple robots roaming the joint.

One of the most rockin' robots had to be this giant hydraulic hand that picked up and crushed 55-gallon drums.… Read more

The purpose of Caption Studio is to create pretagged photos automatically from your photo library or phone. The concept is basic and may seem, at first, to be a good idea. Why spend hours trying to think of the perfect caption for a new photo if an app will do it for you? Unfortunately, not only are the captions limited, but they also can be vulgar and there are very few options for editing or changing them.

Caption Studio presents very few options when you first open it. Either select an existing photo from your library or take a new … Read more

Google Glass isn't the only pair of high-tech specs making a splash on the personal viewing scene. Sony Entertainment Access Glasses are about to give deaf moviegoers a way to watch first-run films with closed captions at the theater.

The glasses project closed captions at the bottom of the viewer's eyesight. The text is sent via a wireless system to a receiver that feeds the data to the glasses. Regal Cinemas also is offering an audio headset option for the blind, providing descriptive audio tracks to match what's happening on screen.… Read more

At first glance, Kiddie Captions appears to be an app without a clear purpose. As you register, add your children to the app, and start taking photos, however, it becomes apparent that this is a glorified scrapbook creator and photo tagger. The number of people who will find use in this app is limited, and the interface is frustrating enough to be a major barrier for even those few.

Upon starting the app, you are required to register with the developer. The registration process is not optional, nor is adding your children. In fact, none of the app's functions … Read more

It's hard to surf the Web without encountering a new meme, whether it be a grumpy cat or a cute baby. Photo Caption Pro Extreme lets you apply custom captions to your pictures so that maybe yours will be the next Internet sensation. We weren't big fans of all the pop-up ads, but it performed as promised.

Photo Caption Pro Extreme opens with two menu options: take a photo or choose one from your iPhone's Camera Roll. We started with a photo from our Camera Roll. Two pop-up ads appeared after our selection, but we were able … Read more

LAS VEGAS--My stepfather doesn't have the best hearing, and phone calls can be a trial. He tends to crank the speakerphone volume to MAX.

Clarity, a division of Plantronics, is trying to help the tens of millions of people with hearing loss with its new Ensemble phone, which displays real-time captions of what the other person on the line is saying.

Developed with ClearCaptions, the Ensemble is an amplified phone with a 7-inch touch-screen tablet display for the captions.

While there are other caption phones on the market, the Ensemble is being billed as the first of its kind with a tablet interface, and is on display at CES 2013. … Read more

YouTube added six more languages to its closed caption feature today, allowing users to read a video's audio in German, Italian, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Dutch.

Viewers just turn on the closed captioning by clicking on the "CC" button in the toolbar during the video. YouTube is also testing a translate feature, available in beta, that translates the caption into another language.

In addition to the automatic captioning, video creators will have editing tools to improve the automated captions since there will undoubtedly be errors in the initial text, according to YouTube. These tools include the ability … Read more

Netflix and the National Association for the Deaf (NAD) have come to an agreement about captions for the company's streaming videos: 100 percent must be captioned by 2014.

The agreement comes by way of a class action lawsuit filed by NAD in 2010 that alleged the streaming service was "failing to provide adequate closed captioning on 'Watch Instantly' streaming video programming," and therefore was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

After back-and-forth between the lawyers -- and Netflix working to get the case thrown out -- the two sides finally settled this week.

"We … Read more

YouTube is looking to help video makers grow their global audience. Google's video hosting platform announced today that videos can now be translated into more than 300 different languages -- from Turkish to Tagalog to Tswana.

"Growing a global audience on YouTube means having your videos reach many people, speaking many languages," YouTube product managers Jeff Chin and Brad Ellis wrote in a blog post today.

YouTube has two types of translating services. One is the automatic caption translation service that uses Google Translate and has more than 60 languages. The other service translates more uncommon languages … Read more