A woman showing the Google Project Relate speech app
(Picture: Google)Google is launching a new Android translation app aimed at helping people with speech issues communicate with others. Currently in beta, you can be among the first to try out Project Relate by signing up here. According to Google, the app works by listening to your speech patterns, transcribing them into text, and repeating what is said in a clear voice.
By learning how people with “non-standard speech” talk, the app will also allow them to communicate with Google Assistant (the company’s version of Alexa or Siri) to complete tasks, from looking up words in the dictionary to undertaking calculations, to providing news and weather updates. The app needs to hear at least 500 phrases to be trained, which Google estimates can take up to one to two hours, though you can spread the utterances over multiple sessions.
Google says that roughly 250 million people worldwide have non-standard speech and may have trouble being understood. In practical terms, the app could be a boon for loved ones looking for a way to converse with an affected family member. Google also suggests that it could help users to communicate with those who aren’t as familar with their speech patterns. One early tester of Project Relate said she went from having less than 10 per cent of what she said being understood by people she had just met, to having more than 90 per cent of her speech understood.
Of course, not everyone will be comfortable sharing their voice data with Google. The company does state that it will use the phrases recorded by the app to help improve its tech and products that rely on speech. That could mean things like Google Assistant and Google Nest smart speakers and displays.
Project Relate’s release coincides with the opening of Google’s new Accessibility Discovery Centre in London, the first outside its native US. The company describes the space as a workshop where its software and hardware teams can build new kinds of tech “to remove more of the barriers that people with disabilities face every day”.
Google built the centre in consultation with local partners, like the Royal National Institute of Blind People, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, and charity Everyone Can, as well as Google’s internal Disability Alliance employee resource group.
