US-based video-conferencing platform Zoom has now extended its live translation feature to all free Zoom meetings accounts to make its service more accessible.
The feature, also known as the live transcription feature, provides automatic captioning during a Zoom video call. It was earlier only available for the paid Zoom Meetings users. The option to enable subtitles will be available for Zoom video calls and webinars.
Zoom said in a blog post, “It’s important to us that everyone can successfully connect, communicate, and participate using Zoom. Without the proper accessibility tools, people with disabilities face tremendous barriers when using a video communication solution.”
“That’s why we are focused on building out a platform that is accessible to everyone, and features such as auto-generated captions are an important part of that mission,” the company added.
The account admins can turn on live transcription, and participants in a video call can privately ask the host to turn on closed captions from the meeting toolbar, Zoom said.
According to the company, “Users will have to enable the feature via Zoom for Web, the Closed captioning option can be found under Meetings tab in the Accounts Management settings.”
The closed captions feature is currently only available in English but Zoom says it is planning to extend the feature to other languages as well. It also supports manual captioning as well as integration from third-party captioning services.
Further, Zoom has introduced a number of additional accessibility features on its platform including keyboard shortcuts, pinning interpreter video, screen reader support, and voicemail transcription.
