Mobile marketing and communications company Txtlocal are working with Time Is Ltd. (TIL) on their product JayBee, to help individuals with a wide variety of illnesses and varying degrees of disability to communicate both audibly and instantly with the outside world.JayBee is a system which allows those who do not have the power of speech to communicate fully, fluently and quickly. Developed by satellite control systems company Time Is Ltd, and text-to-speech solutions CereProc, JayBee uses various ‘triggers’ such as hand movements, touch screen, head movements and even a simple blink of an eye, to transform predictive text phrases into very realistic British voices which add character to the audible communication. Designed initially for people with Motor Neurone Disease, JayBee allows users to say exactly what they want to say. It learns their communication patterns using technology initially used by TIL in the Space Industry
Simon Greenway of simonface.org has been testing the product on behalf of people with Motor Neurone Disease. “The seamless integration of Txtlocal mobile media services into JayBee has produced a most powerful product which will be of immense help to those who lose the ability to speak. It only takes a few keystrokes or face gestures by the user to send instant messages to carers, family and friends. JayBee with SMS really empowers those with the disease to achieve a higher quality of life through communication.”
Managing Director of Time Is Ltd, Ian Schofield wanted to extend the system to allow those indoor-bound to communicate with the outside world. Ian selected Txtlocal from many competitors, and in a matter of weeks the Txtlocal platform became a vital extension to the JayBee system allowing users not only to send text messages instantly to mobile phones, but to receive the responses back into JayBee.
It works by allowing any of the phrases the user would normally speak, or so called instant phrases such as ‘Come quickly I need help now” to be sent through Txtlocal’s SMS Gateway and the response from the recipient is retrieved from the same Gateway and displayed in JayBee.
Ian said “Our partnership with Txtlocal is truly revolutionary for JayBee users. It means that for the first time, people can now call for help, text for an ambulance or simply have a general chat with a friend. It’s amazing that those unable to speak through conventional methods, can now send a text, simply by moving a part of their body.”
The Txtlocal and JayBee systems work in harmony with each other so that SMS replies can be sent back to the user and a text conversation can take place, giving freedom and power to the user to be in touch with the world.
Managing Director of Txtlocal said “We are extremely proud that our robust platform has been implemented into such a sophisticated system like JayBee. It is testament to both of our technological expertise that people who don’t have the ability to speak, can still communicate effectively and instantly. This really is the power of mobile in action, helping people to stay in touch.”
JayBee is a new competitively priced Alternative Augmentative Communication (AAC) system, and is integrated with CereProc’s advanced text to speech system CereVoice. CereProc voices are renowned for their quality and the emotional and characterful capabilities see www.cereproc.com.