Google has announced a slew of new features for its Pixel smartphones (opens in new tab) including the ability to type to talk during phone calls as part of its latest Pixel feature drop.
Whether you're unable or prefer not to speak on calls, the search giant is giving Pixel owners a new way to communicate using its Live Caption feature.
First unveiled back in 2019, Live Caption (opens in new tab) is an accessibility feature that uses speech recognition algorithms to assess audio being played from your browser (opens in new tab) and automatically caption it for you. Now though, the feature is being utilized for an entirely different purpose in phone calls.
Live Caption and Direct My Call
When on a phone call, Pixel owners will now be able to see captions of what the person on the other end of the line is saying in real time. However, they'll even be able to type out a response on their smartphone (opens in new tab) and have it read aloud to the person they're in a phone call with.
While this new feature will likely be a godsend for people with speech or hearing problems, it can also be quite useful when participating in conference calls (opens in new tab) and other work-related calls. This is because with Live Caption on Pixel devices, you'll be able to follow along in phone calls even in noisy environments as well as in places where you wouldn't normally be able to take a phone call.
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For those who haven't upgraded to the Pixel 6 (opens in new tab) or Pixel 6 Pro (opens in new tab) yet, Google has also announced that its Direct My Call and Wait Times features will be available for the Pixel 3a and other newer Pixel devices.
Direct My Call (opens in new tab) is a feature that makes it easier to progress through complicated phone trees when calling a business as Google Assistant can translate these complicated automated messages for you. Meanwhile, Google's Wait Time (opens in new tab) feature shows the projected time it will take to get through to an actual person when calling a toll-free number.
Google also announced a number of other useful new Pixel features and you can learn all about them by checking out this blog post (opens in new tab).
- We've also featured the best business smartphones (opens in new tab) and the best productivity tools (opens in new tab)
Via TechCrunch (opens in new tab)
