Internet Access Locator
Wilmington – Lt. Governor John C. Carney, Jr. will join with representatives of the Delaware Department of Technology and Information and Diamond Technologies to announce the use of new technology to aid people in finding public access to the Internet.
Carney will make the announcement Tuesday, September 17 at 10:30 a.m. at Neighborhood House, located at 1218 B Street in Wilmington. Neighborhood House is a community service center that offers day care, family life programs, housing counseling service, college and career counseling and other services. Neighborhood House also provides public access to the Internet and is one of the centers that a community member could locate by using voice recognition technology.
“This is really the first of what we hope are many applications of this technology in serving the public better,” said Carney, who will demonstrate the technology at Neighborhood House on Tuesday. “This technology will enable people to navigate their way to information and solutions over the phone by doing nothing more than providing basic information such as a zip code or the name of a town.”
The first of a series of “Access Delaware” projects, this Internet Access Locator Project will enable Delaware residents without home access to the Internet to find the closest location with public access, whether it is a library, senior center, boys and girls club or some other community service center.
Voice-based Internet technology – also known as VoiceXML – essentially allows people to navigate the Internet by using their voice and a phone instead of their eyes and a computer. Instead of pointing, clicking and typing with a mouse and a keyboard, callers can simply answer questions until their search for information is sufficiently narrowed. Based on studies conducted by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Internet connected computers are present in about 50 percent of all households in the United States. Comparatively, phones are present in 95 percent of all homes.
The Access Delaware Initiative (http://dti.delaware.gov/services/accessde.shtml) being undertaken by the Department of technology and Information is intended to leverage the significant penetration of telephones in households as a way of delivering government information to citizens. Ultimately, it is the goal of this Project to build up a portfolio of voice applications that are available through a single toll free number -- this menu of applications will be the VoiceXML equivalent to the State's Delaware.gov Portal.
“For the most part, surfing the Internet still requires a computer, keyboard and a mouse – but this is changing. The voice-based Internet is really what the Internet could look like several years from now” said Carney. “Through this project, we are harnessing the Internet of tomorrow to bring today’s Internet to more and more Delawareans.”
In developing the Internet Access Locator System, the State partnered with Delaware-based Diamond Technologies. Headquartered in New Castle, Delaware, Diamond Technologies is a high caliber systems integration firm that assists organizations in achieving their business objectives through the implementation of leading information technologies.
