[announce] OASIS Member News: Republica Provides Tools for PublishingMaterial for Visually Impaired

[Ulla Reinikainen <ulla.reinikainen@republica.fi>]

Press Release October 1, 2002


REPUBLICA PROVIDES TOOLS FOR PUBLISHING MATERIAL FOR VISUALLY IMPAIRED 
 
Republica Corp., specialised in XML data processing, provides a data conversion system to Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired (FFVI). The system will convert newspapers and magazines, brochures and price lists as well as books among others automatically into a format that is suitable for visually impaired. Until now the transformations has partially been made manually. 
 
The huge amount of printed information and the vast growth of it have complicated the daily life of visually impaired. FFVI's IT-System & Services offer news, articles as well as various other kinds of literal material in electronic format for visually impaired who own a computer. Depending of the defect of vision and the computer accessories the customer can read the material with big font, Braille or listen to it as a synthetic speech. IT-System & Services started in 1996 and it has approximately 1300 customers.
 
According to the current forecasts, many organisations producing information, such as magazine and newspaper companies, will start utilizing XML-standard in the next few years. "We needed to find an efficient tool, which can help us in exploiting the information and the possibilities to use it. The possibilities are getting better and better as the XML-standard is becoming more used," says Heikki Ekola from the FFVI. "X-Fetch conversion tools seem to offer us various opportunities for automating the conversion processes and adding new publications to our service." 
 
In the beginning Republica's system will be used in converting news and articles from the newspapers Taloussanomat and Ilkka. In the future the selection will expand to other type of publishing as well. FFVI aims to serve customers around Finland by offering as versatile services as possible. 
 
FFVI also has their own printing house, which produces several different publications in the traditional Braille. FFVI expects that in the future Republica's system will also help the Braille-production in the printing house.
 
"The system provided to the FFVI is an excellent example of the solution that utilizes the greatest benefits of XML. The system based on X-Fetch products can be rapidly implemented and it can be extremely cost efficiently be scaled to support and manage new source and output formats" says Timo Airaksinen, Vice President of Product Business from Republica.

 
Further Information:
 
Timo Airaksinen
Vice President, Product Business
Republica Corp.
Tel. +358 40 301 1115
timo.airaksinen@republica.fi
 
Heikki Ekola
IT-desinger, IT-System & Services
Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired
Tel. +358 9 3960 4211
heikki.ekola@thp.nkl.fi
 
 
About Republica
Republica Corp., founded in 1996, concentrates on XML-business. Republica's products enable real-time information exchange between company's information systems, as well as between company and its interest groups. The products facilitate easy and fast integration of these different systems. Republica is based in Finland and has offices both in Helsinki and Jyväskylä. Additional information can be found at the company web site www.republica.fi.
 
About Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired (FVVI)
Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired is a special service provider with a social element as well as an advocacy organization for the blind and the partially sighted. The aim of the Federation is to secure the blind and visually impaired an equal status with other Finnish citizens. To achieve this the Federation seeks to improve the capabilities and skills of the visually impaired, while also trying to influence the society at large. The visually impaired have established number of associations (14 regional and 11 activity related). The associations look after the interests of the visually impaired within their own areas and provide information services and arrange leisure activities. Regional associations are divided into 80 local branches. The Federation was founded in 1928.