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Yes, Google's Live Transcribe tech can technically detect farts

Google says its tech is capable of detecting flatulence, but adds that it's difficult to acquire data to improve this feature.
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Published onMay 17, 2019

An official image of a new Live Transcribe feature which transcribes non-conversation sounds, like whistling and dogs barking.

Google’s Live Transcribe app for Android is a fantastic tool for hearing-impaired people, using machine learning to quickly transcribe conversations and other sounds around you.

The latest app update has brought the ability to transcribe ambient sounds, such as dogs barking and sirens passing by. This led several journalists to wonder whether the Live Transcribe tech could be used to detect farts. And sure enough, the official Android Twitter account confirmed this capability (h/t: 9to5Google).

Yes, our ML can do it, but it’s difficult acquiring a test data set.
— Android (@Android) May 16, 2019

It turns out that Google’s technology has this ability, but it needs more samples to make detection work reliably. Getting these samples could prove rather awkward, but several Twitter users have already (jokingly?) volunteered to help the company expand its data-set.

It’s not just a gag either, as some hearing-impaired people might not be aware that flatulence can make a noise. So there certainly could be merit to implementing this in Live Transcribe.

In any event, Google has been beefing up its accessibility features this year. At Google I/O 2019, the company revealed Live Caption for Android Q, using on-device machine learning to deliver captions for any video on a smartphone.

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