Central and Eastern European Survey

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Type of Organisation: public
Number of Employees: less then 10
Activities developed: Research, Education, Services.

CENTER "Speech Computer for the Blind" . The Center "Speech Computer for the Blind" was founded in 1991. We actively collaborated with different organizations for blinds in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, with Overbrook School for the Blind ( Philadelphia, USA ). TOPICS OF GROUP INTEREST : - Ergonomic of the User-Speech Computer Dialogue. - Design of the "Speech" Computer for Blind interface based on the Russian-speaking Speech Synthesator . - Psychology of the User's Expression of the Informative Computer Space ORIGINAL RESULTS: The practice of the exploitation showed that it's hard for Russian speaking blind persons to audition and perception the speech of the foreign synthesizer. We have developed own version of a speech display for the blind working with IBM PC which is based on Russian language speech synthesizer "Phonemophone". Unlike the program Screen Reading which is meant for sounding a display screen we chose a different ergonomic conception and developed an intellectual program "Search Echo" which comments in Russian human acts and computer answers to the blind user, that is it reflects computer's dynamics only but not screen's statics. PROJECTS: Our Center has got 4 Grants from Sorros Foundation from 1994 till February 1997 for working out of Librarian Computer for Blinds, of unificate 7 schools for blinds in e-mail system in Belarus. of special computer courses for blinds in IEC. At present our Center has a special lodgement which is given by leadership of IEC with computernet connected with E-mail. RESULTS: Our Center ivestigates the problem of blind work with texts in Russian such as: encyclopedias, directories, dictionaries, reference books. At the present time we have the set of "speaking" computer programs for the blind which include the following topics: "Encyclopedian dictionary", "English-Russian Dictionaries" "Typewriter", "Key-board", "Editor for Blind", "Learning of Briel"

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