A group of research students at IBM has developed a system to make public announcements available to people on a mobile phone.

Called LAMA, the service was originally conceived to improve communications for deaf people. Its designers hope that it will soon be in use in busy public places like airports, railway stations and hospitals.

As someone enters a place where the LAMA - or Location Aware Messaging for Accessibility - system is running, it is recognised by their mobile phone which will then display a list of the services on offer.

After a user has signed up for the service, public address announcements will be delivered to their handset in their chosen format.

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