Over the past several years, Google has championed assistive technologies to improve the lives of people with disabilities. Its latest effort, Project Relate, helps people with atypical speech caused by neurological conditions communicate with others.
Relate is an Android app created by Google’s Speech and Research teams that uses machine learning to understand an individual’s unique speech patterns and lets them interact with the people and technology around them.
The app has three features. The Listen feature transcribes speech in real time, so can can copy-paste into other apps. With the Repeat feature, Relate can restate what you’ve said in a clear and synthesized voice that can be used for daily conversations with people who may have difficulty understanding atypical speech. There’s also an Assistant function that integrates with Google Assistant, so you can use smart home features, request directions, or play music.
Google began working on Project Relate in 2018 to address the inherent inequities in speech-recognition models. Shortly thereafter, Google Research announced a new initiative called Project Euphonia to collect samples from individuals with atypical speech to improve its speech-recognition models. Since the project started, Google has collected more than a million samples from people with diverse neurological disorders.
We spoke with Julie Cattiau, a product manager at Google AI who leads the team that’s building technologies to create inclusive speech-recognition tools for individuals with neurological disorders. Cattiau told PCMag that her team’s immediate objectives are to make the app work better across the board and reduce the number of samples required when setting up the app. The current version of Relate requires a lot of personalization, but future iterations will hopefully be easier to use when there are more users and data to work with, she said.
Cattiau also expressed a desire to offer additional language support. As a native French speaker, she knows the technology could help other Francophiles and people around the world live more independently. However, English is the ideal place to start since speech-recognition models work best with English right now, she explained.
Google has not announced plans to offer the app on the Play Store, but is looking for volunteers in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States. If you’re 18 or older, have difficulty being understood by others, own a smartphone running Android 8.0 or later (Google plans to offer an iOS version in the future), and have a Google account, sign up at g.co/ProjectRelate.
Once you’ve received details on how to download the app, you’ll need to set aside 30 to 90 minutes to record about 500 phrases, to help familiarize the app with your speech patterns.
