Talking set-top
April 4, 2012
Ocean Blue Software has partnered with Hills Antenna & TV System, supplier of set-top boxes, to release the first of its kind ‘Talking’ set-top box in Australia.
The Talking Set Top Box, Hills HD94003G, was developed with the assistance of the Australian Government and Vision Australia. As part of the Digital Switchover scheme the Australian government have adopted the text-to-speech software and is investing millions to provide visually impaired users with digital Talking set-top boxes that contain Ocean Blue’s award winning, advanced Talking TV software.
It is designed to enable blind and partially sighted people to navigate through the various digital channels, using a text to speech menu and EPG. The Hills HD94003G is a high definition set top box using Ocean Blue’s award winning Text to Speech software. This assistive technology was first developed between Ocean Blue Software and the Royal National Institute of Blind (RNIB) in the UK. The software provides human speech to voice the program guides and menu items to the user. It is designed to give greater visual clarity in operation, to be more intuitive and easy to use, creating a better user experience than normally associated with Digital Receivers.