A new initiative by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland and Voice Logics will make Focus Magazine available on the telephone through a LoCall number 1850 200427 for Ireland's 6,500 registered vision impaired people for the price of a local phone call.

Focus Magazine is a fortnightly taped magazine distributed by NCBI dealing with matters of vision impairment both in Ireland and throughout the world, including interviews, library notes and NCBI announcements. Produced by Joe Bollard, it encourages listeners to partake in the magazine by contributing letters, email and tapes on topics related to blindness and vision impairment.

Now, using speech-processing technology, Voice Logics have created Ireland's first voice portal, enabling callers to hear the magazine read to them over the phone line. The service is simple to use as a caller navigates the magazine using their own voice to give the commands and can be accessed by a standard telephone (landline or mobile) with no button or touchtone requirements - their own voice gives the commands to be followed.

Voice Logics have used the latest in speech processing technology to develop this service, which has been made accessible on a LoCall telephone number funded by the National Council for the Blind of Ireland.

Des Kenny, Chief Executive of NCBI outlined the benefits of the Voice Logics system. "The range of possibilities afforded by this system should not be underestimated. We hope, in time, to introduce other services on the phone line such as bus and rail timetables, providing essential information over the phone line to Ireland's vision impaired community using this technology."

Kevin Thomas, Chief Executive of Voice Logics explained "this technology allows us to offer and develop services that otherwise could not be done through typical means eg touchtone. To date our successes have been in labour extensive industries such as insurance through which we have been able to eliminate many mundane processes, thus allowing staff deal with higher value activities. We have been very pleased with peoples reaction and feedback to date of using the technology and believe that working with NCBI will enable us to understand and develop the technology from a different perspective".

NCBI and Voice Logics believe there is great potential in exploiting voice technology to the benefit of vision impaired people and will be working together to achieve this goal over the coming months.