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eVALUES (E-library Voice AppLication for eUropean Blind, Elderly and Sight-impaired). This Market Validation project aimed to assess the market potential of an enclusion trans-European multilingual E-Library service, based on Internet, for sight impaired people, in particular blind and elderly.

The service allowed 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 (embedded TTS), and other specific mobile devices for disabled, enabling mobility.

The system will be tested by two different panels of users located in the two countries (Spain and Italy) involved in the project, thanks to the direct support of national blind organizations (ONCE - Organización Nacional de Ciegos de España and UIC - Unione italiana dei Ciechi).

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VOCAL BROWSING Project
TThe project's main objective has been to define a business plan for the development of Pan European services that provide voice access to web content (Vocal Browsing). Major Telco and ICT players from Spain, France and Italy were involved.

The initiative, which has been lead by Loquendo, fostered the penetration of Voice Browsing functionalities, as a substitute for traditional navigation techniques throughout Europe. The project has been completed at the end of 2002.

Among the wide range of the potential voice portal services validated, many have been deployed by Telco operators and enterprises such as: Finance information and trading online, Lottery results, Horoscope, Weather, Cinema, Tourist information, Local chemists on duty, Call Completion to Chemist required, Dedicated personalised messages, Traffic information, Navigation services, Parcel tracking services, Voice Dialing. Such services generate now more than 1 million calls per day on Loquendo platforms in Italy.