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The projects below are what we are currently working on. Although there is a bias towards projects to benefit the vision impaired, this is not an intentional policy of a-technic - it is simply that these are the most promising ideas that have come up so far.
Most of the UK's broadsheet newspapers and many periodicals and journals are made available to the vision impaired community in electronic format by TNAUK (Talking Newspapers Association UK). The documents can be read using a computer with existing speech synthesis software.
a-technic have developed a computer program which makes these documents much
easier to read by splitting them into individual sections and pages, and
providing search facilities to find articles of interest to the reader.
[ Read more about Newsreader ]
[ Read user comments about Newsreader ]
SpeakOn is a free program that runs on your PC and is a speech enabled environment containing applications for listening to various media. SpeakOn has been developed for people who are comfortable using computers.
[ Read more about SpeakOn ]
Pipistrelle is a low-cost, easy-to-use computer for delivering spoken voice newspapers/periodicals, music CDs, and other audio content. The target audience for this consumer device is vision-impaired people without computer skills.
[ Read more about Pipistrelle ]
Bat Blaster is an innovative electronic device used by vision impaired
water skiers. It generates loud audible signals simulating a water ski
slalom course and enabling vision impaired water skiers to compete in
slalom events.
[ Read more about Bat Blaster ]
Lazer Blazer is a project currently in development that will be the
next-generation Bat Blaster. Lazer Blazer uses a rotating light beam to
detect the position of the water skier's boot.
[ Read more about Lazer Blazer ]
Many users - especially those with vision impairment or limited dexterity - find modern remote controls for TVs, CDs, etc confusing and unusable.
a-technic are currently prototyping a universal remote control
with a small number of buttons and spoken feedback to the user on the
action of each button.
[ Read more about Talking Remote Control ]