Skype is adding a new option for live captioning and subtitles to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing. The news follows an earlier announcement that PowerPoint is also getting real-time captions and subtitles, and both features will rely on the company’s artificial intelligence work. The Skype option is available by pressing the more, or (+), button during a call and turning subtitles on. This can be set as a default, too.
Live captions and subtitles will auto-scroll during a call, although eventually, users will be able to scroll through captions in a side window if they don’t want to see words overlaid on their call.
The captions and subtitles will be available through Skype version 8 on Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, and Windows, as well as Skype for Windows 10, although the rollout might take a while. The company also says it’s planning to roll out translations for more than 20 languages, but that’ll happen in the “coming weeks.”
