Global Accessibility Awareness Day was Thursday, so it's fitting that both Apple and Google have announced a raft of new accessibility features for their devices this week, all slated to land in the coming year. For deaf and hard-of-hearing people, Apple has beefed up Live Listen by adding Live Captions support and extending it to the Apple Watch. You can use your iPhone’s microphone to boost audio for AirPods or hearing aids with Live Listen, but with Live Captions, you can get instant transcription on your wrist. The relentless drive of AI has seen Google’s Gemini enhance several existing services like Android’s Talkback screen reader, which offers AI-generated descriptions of images for low-vision and blind folks. Google is also relying on AI to enhance its Expressive Captions to convey more emotion and tone.