What you need to know
- Google announced a slew of new accessibility features for Chrome, Maps, Live Caption, and more.
- Chrome will now check the URLs you type for typos and offer suggestions.
- Google Maps also makes the wheelchair icon accessible to everyone, and Live Caption expands its language support.
Google Chrome will now detect typos in the URLs you type and suggest sites that match what you were probably trying to type.
The latest improvement is part of a larger accessibility update released by Google, and is designed to make it easier for people with dyslexia or those learning new languages ​​to access the websites they want to visit. The update will be available on desktop first, with the mobile release coming in the following months.
Chrome’s new typo detector is handy for those who frequently misspell website URLs. Although it may seem generally safe, making this mistake can lead you to another site, which is known as typosquatting and is a form of cybercrime. Typosquatters register domain names that look like popular website names to trick people into visiting their websites instead.
This type of cyber attack has the potential to expose you to malware. Typosquatters often use their websites to distribute malicious files that can be used to steal your personal information through phishing attacks.
In addition to the new Chrome feature, the wheelchair icon will now be visible to everyone on Google Maps. The feature has been available since 2020, allowing you to discover places that are accessible to people with disabilities. It is especially useful for people who use wheelchairs, walkers or other mobility devices. However, you previously had to turn on the Service’s Accessible Places feature to check if a place has wheelchair access.
Google is also making Live Captions for Calls available to more people. Earlier last year, the Google Pixel 6 series gained this feature, allowing you to type your answer during a phone call if you prefer not to speak and read it out loud to the person on the other end of the line. This particular feature is currently available on many top Android phones running Android 12 or higher.
Starting this summer, Google is expanding the feature to the Pixel 4 and 5 series, as well as additional Android models from Samsung and other OEMs, with support for more languages, including French, Italian and German. Google will also add new subtitles for Android tablets.
Finally, Google helps people with low vision or who are blind gain context about the images they encounter online. This is made possible by the Lookout app’s new AI-powered feature known as “image Q&A,” which is initially available to a select group of users with low vision.
Lookout is an app launched in 2018 to help blind and visually impaired people understand their surroundings. Thanks to Google DeepMind’s advanced visual language model, the app will be able to generate descriptions of images, whether they have captions or alt texts. Users will be able to ask questions about these images using their voice.
These are just the latest accessibility improvements that Google has introduced to its ecosystem. At MWC 2023, the search giant unveiled new audio and visual accessibility features for Wear OS, including a mono audio setting that helps users who have better hearing one year than another. Chrome has also received visual accessibility updates that allow you to increase the size of browser content by up to 300%.