December 3, 2023 is the 32nd "International Day of Persons with Disabilities", and the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the China Braille Publishing House and the International Symposium on Education for the Visually Impaired were held in Beijing a few days ago. Zhang Jianchun, Deputy Director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee, and Cheng Kai, Chairman of the China Disabled Persons' Federation, attended the event and delivered speeches.
Over the years, iFLYTEK has built a "bridge" for the visually impaired community based on core voice technology. At the opening ceremony, iFLYTEK won the 70th anniversary "Outstanding Contribution Award" issued by China Braille Publishing House, Zhang Jianchun and Cheng Kai presented awards to the winners, and Jiang Tao, co-founder and senior vice president of iFLYTEK, attended the event and received the award.
Speech synthesis technology
Paving the "blind road" for the visually impaired
An able-bodied person can see the world through his eyes and read to understand the world, while for the visually impaired, he can only obtain external information by touching Braille and listening to audiobooks. However, due to copyright restrictions, the insufficient supply of cultural products and the monotony of content, it is difficult to meet the practical needs of blind friends. The special body should not be a barrier for them to communicate and learn, and with the empowerment of technology, the visually impaired people also have more choices and channels.
In order to help the visually impaired adapt to the changes of the times and understand book knowledge, in 2007, based on the core voice technology provided by iFLYTEK, China Braille Publishing House presided over the research and development of a new reading terminal - Sunshine Listening Book Lang V1, a multi-functional portable hardware terminal device that supports e-book reading and voice menu navigation. Using iFLYTEK's speech synthesis technology, the device can not only read out e-books in TXT, DOC, HTML and other formats with natural human voice effects, helping blind friends listen to any e-books, but also provide audiobooks, music, storytelling, movies and news.
Turn on the Internet listening machine, it is like a "friend" to accompany the blind friend, whether you want to read, read the newspaper, or surf the Internet, road navigation, all the information can be obtained through voice broadcasting, rich content information and diversified functions, for them to perceive the colorful world to provide convenience.
Since then, China Braille Publishing House and iFLYTEK have cooperated more and more closely in information accessibility, and have successively developed and launched 4 products of the Sunshine Listening Book Lang series of blind listening terminals, and produced more than 20 million Sunshine Listening Book Lang series products.
In order to broaden the scope of application, in addition to supporting Mandarin, iFLYTEK and the Hong Kong Association for the Blind Advancement NVDA jointly developed and launched the Cantonese version of Sunshine Listening Book, which has become a must-have software for blind friends in Cantonese-speaking areas.
Speech synthesis technology has successfully opened the door for the blind to the Internet, and has also become the "eye" for the blind to operate various intelligent terminals, building a "bridge" for the visually impaired, allowing them to show themselves in the Internet world and communicate information without barriers.
AI makes life "unhindered"
Blind people "hear" words Deaf people "see" sounds
According to the results of the second national sample survey of persons with disabilities, there are currently about 17.32 million visually disabled people in the mainland. This means that one in every 80 Chinese is visually impaired. In recent years, iFLYTEK has carried out a series of work in the field of science and technology to help the disabled, relying on the accumulation of core artificial intelligence technologies such as intelligent voice, image recognition, and cognitive intelligence.
In 2017, iFLYTEK launched the A.I. public welfare program "Three Voices Lucky", based on the AI capabilities of iFLYTEK's open platform, to help third-party entrepreneurial teams bring barrier-free application development to the visually impaired and hearing-impaired, so that the blind can "hear" the text and the deaf can "see" the sound.
The "Three Voices Lucky" project does not focus on the donation of actual items, but provides support for the entrepreneurial team in terms of technology, investment, market, brand and other aspects, so as to help public welfare products land better and faster, and the products will go to special groups of people as soon as possible to improve their living conditions. With the support of "Three Voices", up to now, the open platform has created nearly 30,000 barrier-free applications and served 12.69 million people with hearing and hearing impairments.
With the advantages of artificial intelligence, iFLYTEK has been working hard for countless people with disabilities to help special groups communicate without barriers.
On the basis of in-depth analysis of the input pain points of the visually impaired, iFLYTEK uses new AI technology optimization to develop the iFLYTEK input method with the free service function of "barrier-free input", and gradually solves the problems of difficult typing, low efficiency, and inconvenient operation for the visually impaired. In October 2020, the iFLYTEK input method was upgraded again, and the barrier-free mode adapted to Android and iOS systems was launched, becoming the first input method in China to pass the certification of the China Blind Association.
It is incumbent upon iFLYTEK to "repair" the blind road for the Internet and clear the obstacles to information input.
In November 2022, the "AI Empowering iFLYTEK Input Method, Extensive Barrier-free Transformation to Bridge the "Digital Divide" declared by iFLYTEK Input Method was selected into the 2022 World Internet Conference "The Charm of Technology" Achievement Manual. By the end of 2022, through the combination model of "technology + service + cooperation", iFLYTEK input method has continuously helped bridge the "digital divide", and its generalized accessibility functions have served more than 5 million users.
In the future, iFLYTEK will uphold the concept of "making science and technology have feelings", and is committed to using AI to give more attention and care to special groups, and make greater contributions to promoting barrier-free information communication between humans and between humans and machines.