Google Meet launches live translation feature

Video-communication service developed by Google, Google Meet, has introduced the live caption translation feature, which is currently in its beta testing.

This was announced by Google on Monday, which also marked the 23rd birthday of the giant tech company.

With the captions being translated during a live video call, participants would be able to communicate to each other without language barriers.

The language spoken by one user can be translated to another language in the caption, to aid understanding of another user in the video call.

According to the announcement, the beta version of the live translation feature is available for English meetings and would support four languages – Spanish, French, Portuguese and German.

The Workspace accounts eligible for the testing are Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Teaching & Learning Upgrade users.

With the translation captions for users, Google Meet video calls would be more global and inclusive, and language barriers would cease to impede collaboration and progress.

“By helping users consume the content in a preferred language, you can help equalize information sharing, learning, and collaboration, and make sure your meetings are as effective as possible,” the announcement read.

Asides business and corporate meetings, the new feature would also aid communication between teachers and students in an online class.

When educators use Google Meet for online teaching, the live translation of captions can help teachers communicate with students who speak a different language than them.

On September 15, 2020, Google unveiled Meet Series One, in partnership with Lenovo, which includes a Meet Compute System with Edge TPU, “Smart Camera”, “Smart Audio Bar” with noise reduction, and a choice of remote control or touchscreen that supports the Google Assistant