Vodafone has announced plans to make its Speaking Phone solution available in several additional markets for blind and low-vision customers. Already available on multiple Series 60 smartphones in the UK and South Africa, the Speaking Phone will also be released in six other countries in 2005, including Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Portugal.
The Speaking Phone is based on ScanSoft's SpeakPAK Talks application, and works by providing text-to-speah (TTS) capabilities for nearly all phone applications. For example, in addition to the usual visual caller ID the phone will say the name of a caller aloud in the earpiece, allowing the user to determine who is calling aurally. Other TTS-enabled features include checking call logs, writing and "reading" e-mail and SMS messages, managing contacts, listening to device information such as battery level and signal strength, and support for most standard PIM applications.
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