‘N.F.B.-Newsline’ is a service for legally blind people. It allows users to hear stories ranging from what's going on in their home state - to what's happening around the world.

The National Federation of the Blind (N.F.B.) U.S. has designed this electronic system that receives digital transmissions from publishers on the morning of publication. The system then reformats the data for conversion to synthetic speech, and uploads to the N.F.B-Newsline servers.

Subscribers need to dial a toll-free number and dozens of newspapers and magazines will be read out over any touch-tone telephone twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

The menu provided allows the user to change the speed and voice quality, spell out words, or search for a particular word or subject. In future, the service will allow more options, such as new ‘voices’ and newspapers in other languages. Users will also receive news reports by e-mail. The information can be downloaded to machines that convert the print to audio or Braille.

More and more papers are beginning to understand that blind and visually disabled individuals, just as the sighted, need to have access to their local papers. This is the reason why numbers of participating newspapers in the service are steadily growing.

Those who cannot read conventional newsprint could qualify for this free service.