In Brazil, service offers translated TV subtitles in real-time

Easy Way Subtitles allows those who can't speak Portuguese to enjoy Brazilian television by running hard-of-hearing captions through Google Translate.

Closed captions are already used to translate foreign speech in television and film, but also to provide hard-of-hearing viewers with same-language transcriptions. Marrying these two concepts, Easy Way Subtitles now allows those who can’t speak Portuguese to enjoy Brazilian television by running hard-of-hearing captions through Google Translate. Developed with the help of creative agency Loducca, the system is aimed at students, or visitors and residents of Brazil who arrive without sufficient knowledge of the language to understand national television programming. Closed caption data provided by television companies is uploaded to the Easy Way server and run through Google Translate in real-time. Using the app on a second device – such as a smartphone or tablet – viewers can choose which channel they are tuned into on their television and the language they’d like it to be translated into. They can then place the second device next to the television in order to watch the program with subtitles. The following video offers a demonstration of the app: The technologies that Easy Way Subtitles is based upon have existed for a while, and the success of the service relies on the simplicity of its concept. Could this idea be implemented by other countries to make their cultural output more accessible for visitors?