Rumours were that Google was going to introduce its ‘Voice Access’ service at the Google I/O conference that was held last year but they didn’t. The company has, however, now launched the service which will allow users to control several features on your smartphones by voice commands.
Using this service you can give commands like ‘go home’ to navigate back to home, or ‘open chrome’ to open the web browser. What makes Google’s ‘Voice Access’ different is that it allows voice access to issue commands that can be used from anywhere in your device’s interface.
In a blog post, the Manager of Accessibility Engineering at Google, Eve Andersson said, “We recently launched Voice Access Beta, an app that allows people who have difficulty manipulating a touch screen due to paralysis, tremor, temporary injury or other reasons to control their Android devices by voice. For example, you can say “open Chrome” or “go home” to navigate around the phone, or interact with the screen by saying “click next” or “scroll down.”
The blog further expands on the company’s efforts inthe accessibility field. Google revealed that they have introduced an ‘Accessibility Scanner Tool’ for Android that’ll allow developers to test their own apps and get suggestions on how to improve accessibility.
The upcoming Android N beta update now comes with Vision Settings, the function of which is to allow users to control features like font size, magnification, TalkBack, and display size.
For folks who are interested, Google has set up a page where you can download the beta version app (v1.0). From what we have heard, the availability is restricted but they are soon going to roll-out in full swing, near future. In the meanwhile, interested folks can head over to this link at APK Mirror to download the Google-signed app.
Speaking of Chromebooks, the search giant has recently come up with a new beta version of ChromeVox screen reader.Google has also updated the Google Docs that now allows users to copy, type, edit or insert tables using voice commands since February this year.
