Over one billion YouTube videos are auto-captioned

After bringing automated captions to YouTube back in 2009, the service has been working on improving the accuracy of the feature. And now according to YouTube’s product manager Liat Kaver, there are now over a billion videos that have auto captions on them, thus giving access to those with hearing impairments as well as those who don’t speak the language spoken on the videos. Since the launch, Kaver says they have achieved a 50 percent leap in accuracy when it comes to the English captions thanks to the improvements of the service’s machine learning algorithms and expanding its training data. You can see the difference in the photo above between the old service (left) and the current model (right).

Going forward, Kaver, who writes about her own hearing disability in this announcement, says they plan to improve accuracy for 10 supported languages. They’re calling on creators to help and review the accuracy of these machine-generated captions to help improve the technology quicker.

YouTube gets HDR treatment

Simulated SDR vs HDR comparison (seeing true HDR requires an HDR display)

YouTube has always readily adapted new audio and video formats into its service. This time around, it adds High Dynamic Range (HDR) support in the mix. What this promises to give to you is videos with “higher contrast, revealing precise, detailed shadows, and stunning highlights with more clarity than ever.” Colors should come out more vibrant in HDR mode. The feature will come to support devices, like HDR TVs with Chromecast Ultra or soon on 2016 Samsung SUHD and UHD TVs. You can see some sample content from YouTube creators like MysteryGuitarMan and Abandon Visuals. If you’re a creator, you can learn about uploading HDR videos from this link.

Google to kill off Hangouts on Air next month, have users move to YouTube Live

Much like what has happened with Google+, Google is taking some of the best features of its Hangouts on Air live-streaming service and moving them to YouTube Live. Starting September 12^th, if you want to livestream through a Google service, using YouTube Live is the way to go. Google released a walkthrough on how users can make a transition to YouTube Live, including things like starting, scheduling, and controlling livestreams from there.

The native Q&A feature won’t be included in the transition. This time, Google wants broadcasters to use social media or Google Slides’ Q&A feature to communicate to viewers while streaming. Showcase and Applause are also getting cut.

Source: The Verge

YouTube brings live streaming to mobile

It doesn’t come as a surprise that YouTube is finally bringing its live streaming capabilities to mobile devices. This now puts them up against the likes of Facebook, Periscope, and Meerkat. YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki made the announcement at VidCon after months of speculation that they were going to introduce this feature.  You’ll see a new red capture button in the corner of the app to start livestreaming. You can take a photo or select one to use as a thumbnail and then start broadcasting to fans and chat in almost real time.

YouTube has been doing live streaming for a number of years already so this is just a progression of that. And the company boasts they have better infrastructure to offer a better experience than its competitors. Kurt Wilms, product lead of Immersive Experience at YouTube, told Mashable, “We’ve put a lot of energy and effort into making our platform great, stable, reliable and fast.” Some of the creators who have access to live streaming include The Young Turks, Alex Wassabi, and SACCONEJOLY.