Archive for the ‘Today In Technology’ Category
Can A Blind Person Really Drive A Car?
Could a blind person drive a car? Researchers are trying to make that far-flung notion a reality.
The National Federation of the Blind and Virginia Tech plan to demonstrate a
prototype vehicle
next year equipped with technology that helps a blind person drive a car independently.
The technology, called “nonvisual interfaces,” uses sensors to let a blind driver maneuver a car based on information transmitted to him about his surroundings:
whether another car or object is nearby, in front of him or in a neighboring lane.
Advocates for the blind consider it a “moon shot,” a goal similar to President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to land a man on the moon. For many blind people,
driving a car long has been considered impossible. But researchers hope the project could revolutionize mobility and challenge long-held assumptions about
limitations.
“We’re exploring areas that have previously been regarded as unexplorable,” said Dr. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind. “We’re
moving away from the theory that blindness ends the capacity of human beings to make contributions to society.”
The Baltimore-based organization was announcing its plans for the vehicle demonstration at a news conference Friday in
Daytona Beach
, Fla.
Maurer first talked about building an automobile that the blind could drive about a decade ago when he launched the organization’s research institute.
“Some people thought I was crazy and they thought, ‘Why do you want us to raise money for something that can’t be done?’ Others thought it was a great idea,”
Maurer said. “Some people were incredulous. Others thought the idea was incredible.”
The vehicle has its roots in Virginia Tech’s 2007 entry into the
DARPA Grand Challenge
, a competition for driverless vehicles funded by the Defense Department’s research arm. The university’s team won third place for a self-driving vehicle
that used sensors to perceive traffic, avoid crashing into other cars and objects and run like any other vehicle.
Following their success, Virginia Tech’s team responded to a challenge from the National Federation of the Blind to help build a car that could be driven
by a blind person. Virginia Tech first created a dune buggy as part of a feasibility study that used sensor lasers and cameras to act as the eyes of the
vehicle. A vibrating vest was used to direct the driver to speed up, slow down or make turns.
The blind organization was impressed by the results and urged the researchers to keep pushing. The results will be demonstrated next January on a modified
Ford Escape
sport utility vehicle
at the Daytona International Speedway before the Rolex 24 race.
The latest vehicle will use nonvisual interfaces to help a blind driver operate the car. One interface, called DriveGrip, uses gloves with vibrating motors
on areas that cover the knuckles. The vibrations signal to the driver when and where to turn.
Another interface, called AirPix, is a tablet about half the size of a sheet of paper with multiple air holes, almost like those found on an air hockey
game. Compressed air coming out of the device helps inform the driver of his or her surroundings, essentially creating a map of the objects around a vehicle.
It would show whether there’s another vehicle in a nearby lane or an obstruction in the road.
A blind person, who has not yet been chosen, will drive the vehicle on a course near the famed Daytona race track and attempt to simulate a typical driving
experience.
Dr. Dennis Hong, a mechanical engineering professor at Virginia Tech who leads the research, said the technology could someday help a blind driver operate
a vehicle but could also be used on conventional vehicles to make them safer or on other applications.
Advocates for the blind say it will take time before society accepts the potential of blind drivers and that the safety of the technology will need to be
proven through years of testing. But more than anything, they say it’s part of a broader mission to change the way people perceive the blind.
Mark Riccobono, executive director of the NFB’s Jernigan Institute, said when he walks down the street with his 3-year-old son, many people might think
he, as a blind person, is being guided by his son.
“The idea that a 3-year-old takes care of me stems from what they think about blindness,” Riccobono said. “That will change when people see that we can
do something that they thought was impossible.”
=========================
The article above depicts what could be the future of total independence for the blind and visually impaired. Instead of the blind and visually impaired relying upon public transportation which isn’t always reliable, the blind of tomorrow could be driving down the road in their own cars.
As was stated, some people think that this is some far-fetched idea that will never come to pass, but as researchers show, it is not only possible, but it is likely to happen within the next couple of decades or so when the technology has been greatly improved.
When computers first came onto the scene, blind people weren’t able to really use them, but look at what we have now? Blind people do programming, write books, create web pages and much more on the computer thanks to speech technology. So why can’t they drive a car?
The concept of a blind person driving a car sounds quite dangerous, and blind people from all over had joked about the idea by saying, “Stick your cane outside the window to navigate.” or “Have a sighted person go along with you to help you to navigate.”
Of course, the latter of these two things is more acceptable, but a human isn’t really the best option for this. That is where technology needs to come into play. So be on the look out for blind people driving on our interstates soon.
Captcha help from Webvisum
Webvisum is a Firefox plugin to help with Captcha images. It does far more than solving captias, to include allowing community lables of graphics. For example 1 person labels graphics on a page which can then be shared with all webvisum users and some OCR capabilities of images which are not captias, etc.
Captcha help from solona.net
Captcha images are those images that are displayed on a website that a visitor must type into a box to show that they are "human". Many websites use these to prevent automated submissions for things like blog comments, account creation and a whole slew of instances.
Apparently these sites think that you have to have "normal vision" in order to be "human". These images can be a huge annoyance even if you do have "normal vision". But for people who are blind or visually impaired the can make the difference between being able to access the internet independently or not.
Some sites offer an audio option for people with vision impairment but these can be very difficult to understand. If you’re sighted and have never tried the audio captcha, try it sometime.
Now thanks to the folks at solona.net there’s another option available to people who are unable to read the captcha image.
Solona is a suite of Internet-based tools that empower visually impaired people to independently negotiate inaccessible objects. They enable people to overcome obstacles that are encountered on a regular basis due to
inaccessible images and web page design. Each tool within Solona is Human-Powered. In other words, everytime a user submits an image to be solved, a sighted human operator is on the other side to translate the image. By harnessing human power to solve inaccessible images, Solona can provide higher quality and more accurate
solutions than any fully automated program or service.
Solona is a non-profit corporation registered in Texas. There is no charge for using any of their services.
Blind and Visually Impaired To Benefit From New Kindle Features In 2010
Amazon working to make the bestselling Kindle also a breakthrough device for
the blind
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kindle, the #1 bestselling product across all of
Amazon, has enabled many vision-impaired readers to enjoy books more easily
than
before, and has also helped dyslexic readers and those with learning
disabilities improve their reading skills. Vision impaired customers benefit
from
Kindle’s ability to change the font size – easily making any book a large
print edition. Dyslexic readers benefit from being able to listen with
Kindle’s
text-to-speech technology while simultaneously reading along with the
synchronized text. Today, Amazon announced that it is working on a new set
of features
that will make Kindle even better for these readers as well as a meaningful
breakthrough device for the blind.
"Kindle is for anyone who loves to read-in fact, we’ve heard from thousands
of vision-impaired customers and customers with learning disabilities over
the
past two years who have been helped tremendously by Kindle," said Ian Freed,
Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "With some key modifications, we believe
Kindle
can be a breakthrough device for the blind, and the team is excited about
making these enhancements."
Below are examples of emails sent to the Kindle team over the past two years
about the significance of these features:
"The other day I took my visually impaired friend to the eye doctor. I just
happened to take my Kindle out of my purse to show her the birthday gift I
had
received. Amazingly, she was able to read on it. How exciting; she had not
been able to read books for many years."
"I’ve always loved to read, but the last year or so vision problems have
hampered my reading. Reading small print was extremely difficult and caused
eye
strain. Fortunately, a dear friend gifted me with my Kindle 2 on my birthday
in September. Since that time, my Kindle has not left my side."
"I have an 11 year old daughter with cerebral palsy. She has very poor
vision and cannot turn pages in a book, so the kindle text to speech is a
blessing
for her. She loves books and will listen for hours!"
"I am an ophthalmologist specializing in rehabilitation of the visually
impaired. I have found the Kindle DX to be of tremendous value to my
patients. A
few modifications could increase its effectiveness."
[From teacher of students with learning disabilities] "One of my students
brought his mom’s Kindle to class this week and gave a little show and tell
for
two different classes. He is certainly a hard worker, but reading is not an
easy skill for him. He reports that the lack of back-lighting, the ability
to change font size and the ‘read-to’ features have been very helpful -
already he feels he has made great progress! The Kindle has really grabbed
the
attention of many of my students who have typically been turned off by
reading assignments."
To make Kindle more useful for the blind, the Kindle team is currently
working on an audible menuing system so blind and vision-impaired readers
can easily
navigate to books unassisted, in addition to listening to books as they can
already do today with Read To Me. In addition, a new super size font will be
added to Kindle, increasing the number of font sizes from six to seven. This
seventh font size will be twice the height and width of the current largest
font. These new features are scheduled for release by the summer of 2010.
Schools Shun The Kindle Ebook Reader For Inaccessibility Issues
Amazon’s Kindle can read books aloud, but if you’re blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will
shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.
The National Federation of the Blind announced Wednesday that the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University in New York won’t consider big
rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more accessible to visually impaired students.
Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this fall, but now they say they won’t look into buying more unless Amazon makes changes
to the device.
"These universities are saying, `Our policy is nondiscrimination, so we’re not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against blind
students,’" said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind.
Amazon.com
Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener said many visually impaired customers have asked Amazon to make the Kindle easier to navigate. The company is working on it,
he said.
According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are about 1.3 million legally blind people in the U.S. Many more people have other disabilities
such as dyslexia that make it difficult to read.
The Kindle could be promising for the visually impaired because of its read-aloud feature, which utters text in a robotic-sounding voice. For blind students
in particular, the Kindle could be an improvement over existing studying techniques — such as using audio books or scanning books page by page into a computer
so character-recognition software can translate it for a text-to-speech program.
But activating the Kindle’s audio feature probably requires a sighted helper, because the step involves manipulating buttons and navigating choices in menus
that appear on the Kindle’s screen.
The federation says the device should be able to speak the menu choices as well.
Electronic books still make up a small portion of the overall book market, but it’s a fast-growing segment. In hopes of getting even more people to try
the Kindle, Amazon released the $489 Kindle DX this year, which has a large screen and is geared toward textbook and newspaper readers. The company then
worked with several colleges to give out Kindles this fall with digital versions of their textbooks on them.
The Federation of the Blind sued one of the schools that participated in this pilot program — Arizona State University — in June, along with the American
Council of the Blind and a blind ASU student, arguing it was discriminating against blind students. That case is ongoing.
The group also filed complaints with the Department of Justice against five other schools that are participating in the Kindle trial with Amazon. Wisconsin
and Syracuse are not among those schools.
Ken Frazier, director of Wisconsin-Madison’s library system, said the library bought 20 Kindle DX devices for use in a history class this fall. Though he’s
not sure how many blind students are at his school, he said many students have difficulties reading texts for various reasons, such as learning disabilities.
"Our experience is that when you make technology accessible, everybody benefits," he said.
It is clearly stated that there’s a problem with the Kindle Ebook reader in regards to accessibility. It seams that when a new technology such as this first arrives onto the scene, and it is equipped with accessible technology to aid the blind in one way or another, it usually means that in order to begin using that bit of technology requires someone who is sighted to navigate to the proper settings to make the device work for one who is blind, or visually impaired.
I strongly suggest that when you turn the device on, that it automatically defaults to the speaking option first so that when a blind person purchases the device and begins using it for the very first time, that it begin speaking immediately without having to use a sighted individual to locate the proper settings just to make the device speak. The speach can always be turned off by a sighted individual by simply flipping some sort of toggle switch, or selecting that option from a very simple menu that instantly appears when the device is first turned on.
A blind or visually impaired person should never have to worry about navigating through numerous menu structures and even hidden menu structures just to get to what they need in order to use the device that they had just purchased.
It shouldn’t be all that difficult for Kindle to make these necessary changes. They should also make all menus speak, including any sub menu structure, and any choices that that menu provides the user for input. The blind and visually impaired should not be left in the dark over complicated menu structures.
For example, I have noticed that on some cell phones, some of the menu structure speaks, but not all of them. If they’re going to add speech access to a device, then all of that device should be made accessible, not just certain parts of it.
After all, if you’re going to add speech to a device, then doesn’t it make perfect sense to make that speech navigation easy to get to and turn on? It should never ever be burried under menu after menu after menu. You should not have to navigate through numerous menu structures just to turn on speech access for any device.
So whether it is the Kindle Ebook reader, or a plasma television, all electronic devices sold in the United states should all be made accessible.
This Is Noteworthy
Being able to take notes while on the go has been the dream of many a blind person since the invention of the audio cassette recorder. As we all know, audio cassettes were cumbersome, and at times, quite awkward. You see, the main problem with audio cassettes for notetaking is that you have to constantly change the tape, rewind and fast forward through the tape to find bits of information, and if that’s not bad enough, then you run into problems when your machine decides to have your cassette for dinner!
Of course, back in the day, cassettes were all that blind and visually impaired people had to take notes with, other than the Braille Writer. Fastforward to today, and now we have some very exciting options for notetaking. We have laptop machines, desktops, digital voice recorders, and yes; actual notetakers. We’re going to focus on the notetakers because these are very exciting devices that assist blind and visually impaired people to manage information while on the go.
When you hear the word notetaker throughout this post, think PDA. If you’re a sighted individual reading this, then you know all too well what a PDA is, and how they work. With a standard PDA device, you can write documents, browse the web, send e-mail, manage contacts, and with today’s PDAs or smart phones, make telephone calls.
Of course, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired are a bit different, but the same in many ways. For starters, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired are a bit larger than the ones you purchase in an electronics store. The reason being is that these devices come with either a full sized Braille writer keyboard, or a standard querty style keyboard that is used on all computers.
Also, PDAs for the blind and visually impaired come with speech and Braille displays making it that much easier for the blind and visually impaired to access information.
Notetakers come in all sorts of combinations and flavors. They also range in price too. However, what you need to remember is that notetakers for the blind and visually impaired are more expensive than the ones that you purchase in the electronics store. The reason being is that these specialized notetakers utalize special software and hardware to make these devices accessible to the blind and visually impaired.
Many of these notetaking devices come with Braille keyboards, or querty keyboards. These devices allow for blind and visually impaired people to access technologies that their sighted peers do on a daily basis.
Notetakers have come a long way since their inception. The very first notetaking devices had very robotic-sounding speech,and very little memory storage, and most of them used a standard 3 and a half inch floppy disk drive that held information. for the day, those storage drives held a lot of information, a staggering 1.44 MB, which by today’s standards is nothing! However, back then, 1.44 MB was a lot of storage space. Today, we have multi-gigabyte storage devices, and even terabyte storage devices that are portable and will work with most notetaking hardware provided today.
Notetakers have truly revolutionized the way that the blind and visually impaired handle their information. Everything from handling grocery lists, to club memberships can all be handled with today’s notetakers. Even surfing the web is now possible, and if that’s not enough, then what about streaming media?
You can download files with these devices, play audios, write documents, plan vacations, doctor’s appointments and much much more.
Below is a site that will give you some idea as to what these devices are like and what they have to offer.
If you are blind, or visually impaired yourself, or you know somebody who is, then the link above should give you some great information on these devices. However, like I said, these devices are a bit more expensive than their off the shelf counterparts.
My favorite is the Voice Note mPower, which is listed on the web site above. I honestly feel that if you’re going to purchase a notetaker, then the Voice Note mPower should be the one to get. It is actually part of the Braille Note family of products being offered by Humanware, a leader in assistive technology devices and software.
The very first notetaker that I have had the joy of learning was the Type ‘n Speak produced by Blazie Engineering. It has a querty style keyboard, and speech output. However, the speech output was truly undesirable. It was extremely robotic, and barely understandable.
However, the Type ‘n Speak did have some really interesting features that normally come with notetakers. You could create documents with it, manage appointments, do calculations and much more.
However, it lacked Internet connectivity, and it used those 1.44 MB floppy disks in a drive that costs about $300 to purchase. It was truly an interesting learning experience because it was my first exposure to electronic notetakers.
It is good to see that notetakers come in many configurations and styles to fit just about anyone’s needs. If you’re a strict Braille user, then you will want to purchase a notetaker that has a Braille style keyboard, whereas if you love to type on the PC, then you will want one with a standard querty style keyboard instead. You can get notetakers with, or without refreshable Braille displays.
However, with the refreshable Braille displays; you’re going to pay a whole lot more for the notetaker. Just make sure that you choose the notetaker that best suits your individual needs. Make sure that you get everything that you want and need from the device prior to ordering. The last thing that you want to have happen, is to order the wrong product, and regret it later.
Notetakers are great tools for the blind and visually impaired because just like their off the shelf counterparts,; PDAs, the blind and visually impaired can do much of the same things that their sighted peers do on a daily basis.
Full Page Refreshable Braille Displays Possible?
Is it really necessary to learn Braille? That is a question that has arisen in many conversations with those who are blind, or visually impaired. You have your hard core Braille users who will not use anything else, then you have those who switch from technology to Braille, and from Braille to technology in a heartbeat.
Braille, just like reading print is a fundamental part of the entire learning process. It is a form of communication that when all else fales, you can definitely rely upon it. You see, the majority of blind and visually impaired people in the United States are all too familiar with the use of technology both in their working environments and schooling environments.
There has been a massive push towards using technology over using traditional Braille. Now this isn’t to say that you can’t have the best of both worlds. That is; you can get the feel of real Braille through the use of refreshable Braille display technology.
Imagine for a moment sitting in front of you is not a traditional Braille book, but rather, a tablet sized device that is the exact same dementions as a Braille book, but without all of the bulkyness, and number of volumes that it takes to produce a single copy of a printed book in Braille.
Your tablet device would have a refreshable Braille display that covers the entire surface of the device, not just a line or two like you find in most traditional Braille displays today. So in essence, you could actually read digitized Braille exactly the same way that you would sit and read a traditional Braille book. That is; your hands will feel all of the Braille that is on the page, thus giving you the look and feel of a real Braille book, but without all of the bulkyness that normally comes with more traditional Braille books.
Being able to actually, and physically search for information on the page with your fingers is the holy grale of blind readers. However, technology hasn’t allowed for this to happen with traditional Braille display technologies.
The below summary is an update on a new piece of technology that may make full page Braille displays actually possible.
Full page Braille displays possible with artificial muscles?
{SUMMARY}
Researchers
are reported
to have developed the technology for an active, full page Braille display. Most of the commonly available Braille displays use a single line of 40, 65 or
80 Braille cells (3×2 patterns of dots) that work by mechanically raising a pin through a hole to represent each dot. Blind readers scan the text by swiping
their fingers across the row of cells, sensing the individual patterns as the letters that form words, and then refreshing the row as each line has been
read. These machines are expensive and have little direct relationship with modern computer displays, although they function well for services similar
to instant messaging.
Electromechanical systems for full page Braille displays (40 cells by 25 lines) would be very expensive, as the technology must be extremely robust and
reliable. The new system uses electroactive polymers (EAPs) to create the dots. These polymers deform when a voltage is applied across them, leading some
to refer to them as ‘artificial muscles’. In the Braille application, a sheet made from a dielectric elastomer is printed on both sides with a pattern
of electrodes; when a voltage is applied between a selected pair of electrodes, the EAP sheet deforms, causing a bump to be raised, which is then released
when the voltage is removed. Due to basing production on sheet technology, rather than individual mechanical actuators, the new display has potential to
be much cheaper, as well as being able to represent more graphical information by using the whole page. Systems based on EAPs could also be used to underpin
haptic (tactile) feedback mechanisms for other applications.
End of summary
By using electroactive polymers, it may be possible to actually develop a full sized tablet device that has a few buttons for page navigation. This new Braille tablet would consist of a 25 line full page display, with a few buttons at the bottom of the unit for navigational purposes.
The buttons would be home, end, skip one page back, skip one page forward, skip 3 pages back, skip three pages forward; just to name a few.
The user would brush his, or her hands across the entire surface of the page much like they did with a more traditional Braille book. The device would use SD cards for the file storage, or have the ability to utilize the services of external hard drives and flash drives in which to read from
The device would have some sort of file navigation system so that the users could switch from one file to another stored on the SD card, or USB device. However, the main feature being that there is a complete full page Braille display at their fingertips in which they can have full access to at any time.
What this means for the reader is that they can carry with them, entire books stored on removable media, and have normal access to them as if they were traditional printed Braille books, but without all of the bulkyness that normally accompanies traditionally printed Braille books.
A tablet type device could revolutionize Braille reading, and even re kindle the interest in learning Braille all over again, thus, bringing Braille back to the forefront of reading for the blind. So yes, the blind can have their braille along with their technology too!
A full page refreshable Braille display tablet would definitely be the holy grale for the blind because it would mean that they could read normally, instead of reading in an awkward mannor such as currently being done with traditional current Braille displays. However, here’s another reason for developing a full page refreshable Braille display, and it has to do with full sentence, paragraph and page structuring in Braille. As many of you already know, Braille does not look the same way as print does on a page. This would give blind professionals ans students a real advantage over traditional electronic Braille reading because for the very first time, electronics can accurately immulate the printed world in Braille.
However, here’s yet another really great reason to promote such a device, and it has to do with the fact that plain text information written by someone who doesn’t know Braille at all could be read in grade 1, or grade 2 Braille by the individual using the Braille reading tablet device. The translation from plain text into grade 1, or grade 2 Braille would be instantanious, thus reducing the need for expensive Braille embossers that produce traditional Braille books.
This could be a huge boost for textbook producers because they would not have to rely upon other third party companies and organizations to translate their works into Braille for the blind. Not only that, but because the device could handle plain, ordinary text means that for the first time, any material, whether it is currently in Braille or not can now be instantly translated into Braille on the tablet device. Talk about cost savings here!
Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what Braille display technology brings us, so don’t give up on it.
A New Off The Shelf Product That Is Blind-Friendly
Ok, I usually don’t do any selling here on the BOSS blog, but I have run across a pretty unique product that I think outdoes the Victor Reader Stream. Not only that, but this is one of those few off the shelf products that also supports the blind and visually impaired. Off the shelf meaning that it can be purchased from a regular consumer retail outlet, and not from a specialized company that specializes in products for the blind. Could this mean that regular retail outlets and manufacturers are starting to come around to the blind and visually impaired?
Who knows, maybe more and more manufacturers will be developing off the shelf products that also cater to the blind and visually impaired. One such product that automatically comes to mind is the Olympus digital recorder line, and I am speaking of the Olympus DS-30, DS-40, and the DS-50 series of recorders that have built-in speech capabilities. Olympus is the only other main stream manufacturer that builds products that are blind friendly thta I personally know of at this time. There may be others, and if there are, please let me know of this so that I can take note of them here in the blog.
If you have a Victor Reader stream, you may want to check this out. This recorder does something that the Victor Reader Stream cann’t do, and that’s record in CD quality stereo. The company that supports this product is called Sound Professionals, and I have personally purchased products from them in the past, and their products are outstanding.
The purchase that I had made was for a pair of binaural microphones to use on my Olympus DS-30 digital voice recorder.
This recorder is called the, PLEXTALK, and it has a whole host of features that you just need to check out by clicking on the link here below.
http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/PT-PLEXTALK-POCKET-PTP1
A Library In Your Pocket
Have you heard of the Victor Reader Stream? Well if you haven’t then you’re in for a real treat today! The Victor Reader Stream is a handheld portable device that lets those who are blind or visually impaired to read books, listen to music and read text files. This compact little device really packs a punch!
For starters, the Victor Reader Stream is the first piece of portable hardware that allows the blind to read the DAISY book format, along with books from Audible.com, and digital material from the Library Of Congress. The device also supports standard MP3 files, as well as WAV, and WMA audio formats just to mention a few. Besides the audio book reading capabilities, the device also supports voice recording from a built-in digital voice recorder.
The Victor Reader Stream stores and accesses everything from standard secure digital cards, the same that you would buy from any electronics outlet. Besides being able to read books from Audible.com and other resources, the device also supports the reading of plain text, RTF, and HTML files. These files are read by the Victor Reader’s built-in speech synthesis, thus making the Victor Reader Stream the most versatile, portable device for the blind and visually impaired. The Victor Reader Stream supports SD cards as high as 16 gigabytes, thus giving the user plenty of storage space for books, recordings and documents, thus making it the perfect educational and vocational tool around.
So who makes the Victor Reader Stream? None other than Humanware of course! Check out the Victor Reader Stream at the following address here below.
This handy little device will make school and work a breeze because no longer will you have to tote huge numbers of school books inside a backpack on your back, thus causing back pain and discomfort, and for the blind reader, carrying large numbers of Braille books simply isn’t very economical, not to mention comforting.
For the employee, having access to readily available information at the push of a button makes productivity much more enhanced, plus it also improves on overall productivity levels because you have it all right there with you in one simple, easy to use device. Use your Victor REader Stream to record lectures, mettings, or whatever you want with the built-in digital voice recorder.
On an 8 GB SD card, you can store at least 850 hours of digital recordings! Now that’s real power in a small package! On that same size card, store thousands of texts and literature, as well as buisness information, plus have at your disposal, hundreds and hundreds of audio books, all right at your fingertips from this easy to use simple device.
The Victor Reader Stream makes working and learning fun and enjoyable. So do yourself a huge favor and check it out at the above address.
Turn Your MP3 Player Into An E-book Reader
It is always in my best interest to find quality resources for the BOSS program, and this post is no acception. Today, I have two really great web sites that can help you to convert text, word and pdf documents into MP3 format.
Now the question may be, why would I want to do that? Well for starters, it allows for you to read your documents without being tied to your computer. You see, you can now turn any MP3 player into an E-book reader quite easily and affordibly. A matter of fact, you can do it all for free! Here are the web addresses below.
http://vozme.com/index.php?lang=en
Now you may have to sign up for these in order to create files, but the signup process is free. Also both of these sites are speech friendly and do work great with screen readers. So take your text based e-books and turn them into spoken word, and turn your MP3 player into an audible e-book reader!
Note To Those Using The Victor Reader Stream
If you have one of these special devices, MP3 books work great on it. You can navigate the MP3 file just as easily as a traditional book on the device. So do yourself a favor and check out these two unique resources, and begin using them to educate yourself, or simply to have fun with your reading.