Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic® (RFB&D®) and HumanWare Support New Portable Players for AudioPlus® Books
May 23, 2007
Princeton, New Jersey and Longueuil, Quebec, May 23, 2007
Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic® (RFB&D®), America's educational library of recorded textbooks for people unable to read print due to a visual or perceptual disability, and HumanWare, the leader in assistive technology for vision, are pleased to announce that the HumanWare family of BrailleNote mPower, PK and Maestro accessible PDA's will have the ability to play AudioPlus recorded books from RFB&D as of early June 2007.
HumanWare Canada has long been a supplier of the Victor Reader Family of digital audio book players to RFB&D's members, all of whom have print disabilities. When played on the HumanWare Victor Reader digital players, AudioPlus recorded books can be navigated much like a print book, allowing the reader to move from chapter to chapter, section to section or jump directly to any page.
"RFB&D's AudioPlus books are an essential learning tool for students and an important information source for professionals," says Stephanie Turner, RFB&D Product Manager of Market & Product Initiatives. "With Victor Reader audiobook players, and now the addition of the HumanWare portable PDA products, our members have an even wider variety of tools they can use to access our books."
"Since 2001, Victor Reader CD-based talking book players have benefited RFB&D members with an enhanced reading experience for the special navigable AudioPlus books," says Gerry Chevalier, Victor Reader Product Manager at HumanWare. "We are excited to now have the Victor Reader technology available on our mPower, PK, and Maestro PDA products so these already highly functional devices can now also be used to listen to RFB&D's books."
With the recent addition of tools such as the Oxford Concise Dictionary and the Nemeth tutorial, the BrailleNote mPower has become the braille notetaker of choice in the educational market. The Maestro PDA, in addition to its accessible suite of Windows PDA applications, also hosts the very popular Trekker GPS navigation tool to help people who are blind navigate independently in their everyday travels.
RFB&D will provide and support the UAK (User Authorization Key) to enable playback of AudioPlus books. Users will be required to purchase the BrailleNote or Maestro devices directly from HumanWare or through an authorized dealer.
About RFB&D
RFB&D serves more than 146,000 students from kindergarten through graduate school and beyond with its one-of-a-kind collection of digitally recorded educational titles. RFB&D's AudioPlus textbooks on CD provide unprecedented navigation, ease of use and proven effectiveness as learning tools for students with print disabilities. Students rely on RFB&D's unique accommodation to access the printed page and to achieve educational success. All of RFB&D's accessible titles are recorded by more than 7,000 volunteers working in 29 RFB&D recording studios nationwide.
About HumanWare
HumanWare (www.humanware.com) is the global leader in assistive technologies for vision, including products for the blind and visually impaired. HumanWare's products include BrailleNote, the leading productivity device for blind people in education, in business and in their personal lives; the Victor Reader product line, the world's leading digital talking book players; and myReader2, the new version of HumanWare's unique "auto-reader" for people with low vision.
For further information:
RFB&D
Mark Zustovich
tél. : (609) 520-7993
email : mzustovich@rfbd.org
Web : www.rfbd.org
HumanWare Canada
Nicolas Lagace
tel.: (450) 463-1717
email: nicolas.lagace@humanware.com
Web: www.humanware.com