From 2000 to 2005 I had participated in an effort by the American Foundation for the Blind to enable e-government services by telephony enabling Daisy XML talking book documents. This particular project was originally started by me in the Republic of Macedonia. A pilot project was deployed by the U.S. Social Security administration. I believe this particular presentation on the project was delivered in Trinidad as part of the FLOSS/Caribbean conference.
4. So what is DAISY?
Originally developed as a proprietary industry specification for digital talking books in
Sweden, it has become a free and open standard in recent years to enable wide use.
Daisy “3” has evolved into a new XML dialect for publishing electronic (digital) talking
books and other structured multimedia content.
Use of standardized structures and XML tags to represent navigatable elements of
booklike documents, such as chapters, sections, indexes, etc.
Use of multiple document files including media content (such as speech content),
optional markup for original text source document with timing control, and XML
navigational control for structured content.
DAISY supported by separate worldwide consortium (see www.daisy.org), by the
national library service for the blind/U.S. Library of congress, and many other
institutions.
DAISY “3” reference implementation first demonstrated on free software!
5. Goals of GNU Alexandria
Daisy book reader to provide access to and navigation of electronically publishable
audio books and documents that follow the daisy xml standard (see
http://www.daisy.org).
Voice rendering existing web content to parse and render existing common and W3C
standard's compliant web site content (.html, .xhtml) in voice. To enable voice and
touch tone navigation for such existing sites.
Browsing voice enabled web sites providing telephone access and navigation to
standard markup formats, such as W3C approved VXML.
Providing voice access for connected users with a browser and a simple Java applet,
it will be possible to access IP delivered voice representations for sites currently
browsed.
7. What is GNU Bayonne?
"Telephony Application Services" platform for the Public Telephone Network Voice
Mail, Automated Governmental Services, Customer Relationship Management (CRM),
custom interactive voice response applications.
Standard service creation environment thru scripting.
Easy system administration; "Web Server" like concepts.
Abstract hardware interface for analog (PSTN), digital (ISDN, SS7, etc), and IP (SIP,
H323) based telephone networks; write applications once, use anywhere.
"High Availability" telephony application services platform.
Integration with Web Services thru XML scripting and XMLRPC.
Telephony enabling enterprise free software applications; GNU Enterprise and phpGro
upWare.
8. Who uses GNU Bayonne
today?
State Governments and egov initiaves; State of Maine division of motor vehicles.
Companies looking to conduct "vcommerce" to compliment ecommerce.
The Free Software Foundation.
Cellular carriers.
Smaller interexchange carriers for prepaid calling services.
Customer service phone lines.
"Audiotext" services...
Cre dit card clearing over the phone.
10. Voice Enabled Web Services
GNU Bayonne + GNU
Alexandria
●daisy parser
●x/html voice parser
●vxml parser
●voice synth
rtp: & sip:
Apache
●web content
●daisy content
●vxml content
●web services
●other e-gov
applications
Telephone User
●voice content
●touch tone and
voice navigation
http:voice applet:
* companion to
browser/navigation aware
* provides voice for current
page
web browser
11. Project Status & Events
October 2002 Project founding in Skopje with FS Macedonia
March 2003 Initial public discussions during "openweekend" (Prague)
May 2003 AFB demonstrates first GNU Bayonne Daisy reader deployed to enable
voice access to U.S. Government Medicare program documents for the blind.
January 2004, Initial acceptance of GNU Alexandria related proposal for complete
content authoring and delivery system for egovernment document services for the
blind through NSF funded grant under sponsorship of AFB and DevIS.
?? FS Macedonia Soros matching grant, maybe soon?
13. How you can help?
Not all jobs we need help with are purely coding:
Recording of additional voice libraries; recording of new voice vocabularies for different
languages. We currently need German language voices!
Help with making www.gnu.org/software/alexandria fully accessible to all users.
Help with testing and documentation.
Further input and guidance from the visually impaired community.