PROJECT ABSTRACT

The eVALUES project is aimed at providing to sight impaired people, in particular blind and elderly, but also other kind of people with disabilities and barriers to read, a trans-European service -based on internet- which opens to them the extraordinary possibility of reading and having access to written information (access to textual content) by means of computer-generated synthetic voice (Text-to-Speech), using a PC and/or a portable handheld PDA, and other specific mobile devices for disabled, enabling mobility.

The concept of the service is the one of an internet e-document service (Internet Blind and Sight Impaired Bibliographic Center) through which a blind or sight impaired can select any book or document on-line and download to hear it with an advanced conversion from Text to Speech, with the additional possibility of accessing and downloading the document file into a common PDA or mobility specialised PDA device for enabling the blind to hear the document whereever and at any time.

The trans-European service is currently provided as prototype for documents in different languages by the Unione Italiana dei Ciechi (UIC), and in eVALUES this service will be refined and improved by means of two full pilots in Italy and Spain.