No Jitter Roll: Google Launches Meeting Translation, BlueJeans Adds Studio

The news doesn’t stop coming, so we’re continuing to roll along with our new No Jitter format and frequency of a few times a week.

 

In this edition of No Jitter Roll: The race to offer video meetings in multiple languages heats up with Google's launch of live translated captions, and Verizon boosts its BlueJeans Events features for enterprise users hosting remote and virtual events.

 

After testing the feature in 2021, Google made its live-translation feature available to some Google Workspace customers starting on January 12, 2022, for enterprises with Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Google Workspace for Education Plus.

 

The live translation feature will be available in meetings held on the web or via mobile devices, and as of right now, the language translation offering is limited. Meeting participants can translate English meetings into four languages : French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish.

 

By contrast, Microsoft Teams requires using Microsoft Translator if meeting participants need verbal meetings translated in real-time, but its AI-powered Live Captions can translate real-time transcription into a range of different languages and regional variations, including: English (Canada, India, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand), German, Portuguese (Brazil), Dutch (Netherlands and Belgium), French (France and Canada), Spanish, Japanese, Chinese (Cantonese, Traditional, Mandarin, and Simplified), Hindi (India), Italian, Korean, Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Polish, Arabic (United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia), Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Russia.

 

Zoom's translation approach currently doesn't use AI — it has a feature called Language Interpretation where "Users that would like to include interpreters in their meetings or webinars now have the ability to enable Language Interpretation. This allows the host to designate up to 20 participants as interpreters on the web portal or during a Zoom session." The company did demonstrate an AI-powered real-time translation feature during its September 2021 Zoomtopia event; the company had acquired the German AI-powered translation startup Kites and Kites' technology will underpin the feature, anticipated to include 12 different, as-yet-unspecified languages and launch sometime this year.

 

Google's live translation feature is not available to meetings organized by Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Enterprise Essentials, Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Google Workspace for Education Standard, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers. Nor is it available to Google Workspace Individual customers or users with personal Google Accounts.

 

The telecommunications company added BlueJeans Studio to its virtual event and live webinar platform, BlueJeans Events. The new web-based production tool suite gives event producers the ability to mix videos, customize branding, and create polls, and it come with other interactive features. Users can incorporate the company brand using personalized logos, background and colors, ticker banners, name cards, or lower-third overlays during presentations. Additionally, events can support up to 150 presenters, according to Verizon.

 

BlueJeans Studio is launching as an included feature of BlueJeans Events for all Events subscribers. Event plans start at $42/month, which includes unlimited monthly events.