Versions:
Live Captions is a live-captions overlay application for Windows, published by haberwooki and currently available in version 0.4.3, with two versions released to date. Its purpose is to provide real-time transcription of system audio across applications, making spoken content readable as on-screen text regardless of which program is producing the sound. The software captures the machine's audio output and displays the transcription in an always-on-top overlay window, so captions remain visible while the user works in other applications. Transcription is performed locally on the device using faster-whisper running on the GPU, which keeps audio data on the user's machine rather than sending it to a cloud service; if a suitable GPU is unavailable, the software falls back automatically to CPU processing. Beyond plain transcription, Live Captions supports live speaker diarization, colouring captions by speaker so that conversations involving multiple participants remain easy to follow. It can also save every captioning session and make those sessions searchable, which extends its usefulness beyond immediate accessibility into record-keeping and review. Typical use cases include accessibility support for deaf or hard-of-hearing users, following along with meetings, videos, or other audio content, and maintaining a searchable archive of past audio sessions. Within a software catalog, the application fits the accessibility and speech-to-text or audio transcription category for the Windows desktop platform. Installation is per-user and requires no administrative rights, lowering the barrier to deployment on managed or restricted machines, and the required model weights are downloaded automatically on first run rather than bundled with the installer.
Tags: