Software House

Alla FBL è affidato, nell'ambito del progetto VOICE, il ruolo di sviluppatore del software applicativo. La sua particolare esperienza nella gestione dei motori di riconoscimento vocale prodotti da Dragon Systems ed IBM nasce da molto lontano. Ha voluto affrontare, fin dal 1992, la sfida per la gestione, con la sola voce, del personal computer risolvendo i problemi legati alla disabilità motoria (tetraplegici). Successivamente, ha sviluppato, con l'introduzione della sintesi vocale, in collaborazione con un' altra società, un'agenda per non vedenti e per ipovedenti totalmente gestita con comandi vocali. Questa applicazione è stata recentemente implementata con una scheda telefonica ed oggi il pacchetto applicativo permette anche la gestione delle telefonate. Nell'ambito della sordità lo sviluppo di applicazioni è stato concentrato sulla sottotitolazione in diretta di lezioni e conferenze creando il dimostratore che caratterizza il progetto VOICE. Scopo del dimostratore è la semplificazione del processo di trasformazione istantanea della voce in testo scritto e la sua evidenziazione al piede di un'immagine (dell'insegnante, del conferenziere o più semplicemente di una foto, di uno schema...). Per ottenere un "semplice" risultato, come la scritta che compare al piede dell'immagine, occorre, spesso, dover operare scelte complesse. I sistemi di riconoscimento utilizzati sono prodotti largamente commerciali "smontati e rimontati" per raggiungere l'obiettivo. Sono stati utilizzati i tools di sviluppo messi a disposizione da IBM e Dragon Systems integrati con programmi sviluppati ad hoc. Fra le possibilità offerte dal dimostratore all'utente ricordiamo: l'uso della telecamera direttamente connessa alla scheda video del personal computer per gestire l'abbinamento immagine-sottotitoli; la possibilità di estrarre, con un comando vocale, una foto, uno schema, un disegno... dagli archivi del personal computer e portarli sullo schermo; salvare i sottotitoli man mano che vengono generati in un file, per essere successivamente rivisti, corretti, stampati. Fra le opzioni l'utente potrà scegliere il colore dello sfondo e la dimensione ed il colore dei caratteri, nonchè la lingua poichè il prodotto può essere utilizzato in italiano, inglese, francese, tedesco e spagnolo. L'attività di ricerca porta spesso alla realizzazione di prodotti commerciali: è in fase di completamento l'applicazione, nata dall'esperienza del progetto VOICE, per l'insegnamento scolastico delle lingue straniere.

Parole chiave: disabili, disabilità, handicap, tetraplegici, disabili motori, ciechi, non vedenti, ipovedenti, sordi, sordastri, non udenti, scuole, lezioni, conferenze.

ADDRESS:

Telephone

+39 384 91399

Fax

+39 384 91362

Postal address

Contrada della Torre 16, 27036 Mortara (PV), ITALY

attention: Dott. Angelo Paglino

Electronic mail

fbl@lomellina.it

SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS S.R.L. (SOFT. SOL.)

Soft. Sol. is a team of professionals with great experience in networking technologies. Their commitment is to provide complex solutions using distributed LAN architectures and highly sophisticated configurations. Typically the installation has to guarantee data protection and safe storage management applying technologies such as Stand-By Server, Raid, Mirroring and Duplexing. This experience provides its staff with high level skills in Operating Systems and Software Environments.

Soft. Sol. is also part of a leading organisation of retailers in Lombardia which distributes hardware and software of all the major brands in the world. Software Solution is a certified installer of Novell and Compaq computers as well as an experienced company in the creation of networks.

In this type of activities it is in continuous contact with medium and large companies and manage projects of medium and long duration. It boasts great experience in the creation, organisation and financial and quality control of projects. It is for this reason that they have proposed to be a contractor in this project (along with FBL, ARIES, LomellinaNet and Master Soft). Their direct knowledge of the other companies' employees due in part to their common activities, is a guarantee for Soft. Sol., as well as for entire group, that the proposed aims will be achieved. Several of them have their registered office in the same physical location and share the participation one to the other.

The Company has also co-ordinated the development, with Master Soft and FBL, of an application for the blind, to enable the interrogation of various telephone-directories with vocal orders. The program makes possible the PBX management by blind person and it is used from one year by one of the major Italian banks. The system was presented at the last HANDImatica conference at ASPHI in Bologna. The product uses the IBM VoiceType Dictation engine for the vocal input, integrated by FBL, whereas the speech synthesis for the output was developed by Master Soft. Soft. Sol. was responsible for the User-Requirements, analysis, installation and assistance as well as the commercial and economic side of the project.

FBL S.r.l.

FBL is share holder in both ARIES and LomellinaNet and makes often use of their resources, with regards to certain tasks in programming and for the Internet respectively.

It is a qualified distributor of the IBM VoiceType software package. With the collaboration of ARIES it has gained significant experience in the domain of voice controlled applications for personal computers. In 1992 Aries introduced the first version of Dragon System's dictation software into Italy. This was followed by FBL installing the program on machines for motor deficient users. The company has since been responsible for hundreds of installations of this type up, using the more recent version of Dragon Dictate for Windows.

FBL has collaborated with ALFA and ASPHI in giving presentations on the sheer potential of voice to text recognition at several conferences and meetings. As from January of 1996 FBL has been working on the VOICE exploratory research of the JRC, Ispra site, for the creation of a prototype for the hearing impaired, involving voice to text recognition and text to voice synthesis. In this same field of computer applications for the hearing impaired a prototype has already been created to generate conference subtitles from spoken text. In addition, research has also begun, in collaboration with a secondary school in Milan, to integrate such a system with the generation of subtitles for video cassettes.

ARIES Information Technology S.r.l.

ARIES Information Technology is a software house. It boasts great experience in applications for hospitals both for mainframe (IBM MVS, VM e DOS) and also for PCs (dos, Clipper, Windows and OS2).

It has created the information system for the Valduce Hospital in and has created several other systems used in particular units of other hospitals in the area. It promoted, following requests from the radiology units in local hospitals, the use of voice recognition whilst analysing x-rays and other results. This has now been undertaken by FBL.

It's software engineers are knowledged in creating Windows applications using voice recognition and are a qualified IBM Best Team in the OS2 Warp environment.

LomellinaNet S.r.l.

LomellinaNet is an Internet Provider. It is the youngest of the companies that provides an Internet service.

It's workforce is young and aims at gaining experience outside the country's boundaries. It is capable of creating a wide range of applications for the Internet and, being a publishing company, is also able of communicating very effectively through the more traditional method of printed paper.

Master Soft S.n.c.

Master Soft, born as a software house, had widened its activities and is now also an Internet Provider (it uses the title Msoft) and is a reference point of the Msoft group, with over 1500 customers in the area, the majority being companies or Public offices.

As well as the development of commercial applications it has also worked in the area of Disability, particularly with text to speech synthesis (using a Creative SoundBlaster audio card) in creating systems for the blind.

It has recently worked on Msoft's Advanced Research Project, a group of experts solving administrative, organisational and manufacturing problems and creating new software for handling problems related to the Internet and Intranet.

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