[gui-talk] FWd: Victor Reader Stream is Now AudibleReady

[Joel Deutsch]

That's very nice to know, but as a longtime Audible customer, I can say that 
the navigational problem with Audible files hasn't been the lack of ways to 
skip through chapter headings and other such divisions. On both my old 
Creative MuVo Nomad and my Sandisk Sansa M series player, you have a button 
that will enable you to move back and forth between such headings, if only 
they're encoded into the program. And it's the rare Audible book, fiction or 
nonfiction, that has such section coding. Happily, their weekly compilation 
of New Yorker Magazine articles does feature this navigational convenience. 
But the only way to discover the exceptional book recording that has these 
marks, you have to set the player to look for them, and then, if pushing 
that button drops you at something arbitrary like Section 7 for no 
meaningful reason, you have to endure all the fast forwarding or rewinding 
required to stumble around to find where you left off listening before you 
got the bright idea to try hitting that button. So That issue won't be dealt 
with until audible gets their (stuff) together about section markings, no 
matter how many nifty controls a player may feature.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Pattison" <srp at internode.on.net>
To: "'GUI Talk'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>; "Access-L" <access-l at access-l.com>; 
"'PC Audio Discussion List'" <pc-audio at pc-audio.org>
Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 3:50 AM
Subject: [gui-talk] FWd: Victor Reader Stream is Now AudibleReady


From: vip-l at softspeak.com.au

VICTOR READER STREAM DAISY, MP3 AND NISO PLAYER IS NOW AUDIBLE READY

Portable MP3 Player Specifically Designed for the Blind and Visually
Impaired now Compatible with Audible.com

Longueuil(Canada), November 15, 2007

Victor Reader Stream, the pocket-sized portable MP3 player designed for
blind and low-vision people now has the capability to play the popular
Audible.com books. In addition to the variety of audio formats (MP3, DAISY,
and NISO books and music) supported by Victor Reader Stream, the Audible
format will provide a huge additional choice of content to the users.
Audible is the leading provider of spoken audio on the internet, providing
over 140,000 hours of digital audio editions of books, newspapers and
magazines.

The Stream has extensive navigation features for moving through audio books
and text files, including functions that allow you to move to the next
chapter, section or page, or to set bookmarks.  For Audible books, the user
will be able to navigate from one Audible heading to the next, move by
increments of one-, five-, or ten-minute time jumps, and move with an
accelerated fast forward feature that announces the amount of time lapsed.
Blind and low-vision people who listen to talking books on a regular basis
often prefer to speed up the playback. For all audio book formats that
Stream plays, including Audible, variable speed control with digital pitch
correction allows the reader to accurately listen at higher than normal
playback speed.

The player is completely accessible by blind and low-vision users. All keys
and messages are provided through audio feedback. The player has a built-in
User Guide and a Key Describer mode to remind the user of keypad functions.
It comes with integrated text-to-speech voice, allowing it to play text-only
files and announce the track names of music files. It uses an SD memory card
to store books and music transferred from a computer.

"We are very happy to bring the advanced navigation features of Stream to
the Audible listener experience", says Gerry Chevalier, HumanWare Victor
Reader Product Manager. "I know of no other Audible-ready player that offers
accessibility, variable speed playback, and advanced navigation, all in one
package."

"We are very much aware of the value and popularity of Audible books for
the blind and visually impaired", says Will Lopes, Vice President for
Business Development at Audible. "We are pleased to work with HumanWare to
bring the benefits of the accessible Victor Reader Stream player to Audible
listeners".

Victor Reader Stream can be purchased online at www.humanware.com (in USA).
Current Victor Reader Stream users will need to upgrade their player to
software version 1.1 in order to play Audible books. The latest version 1.1
software upgrade is also available online at www.humanware.com.

About HumanWare
HumanWare (www.humanware.com) is the global leader in assistive technologies
for the print disabled. HumanWare provides products to people who are blind
and have low vision and students with learning disabilities. HumanWare
offers a collection of innovative products including BrailleNote, the
leading productivity device for the blind in education, business and for
personal use; the Victor Reader product line, the world's leading digital
audiobook players, and SmartView Xtend, the first fully modular and
upgradeable CCTV-based video magnifier.


For further information:

HumanWare Canada
Nicolas Lagace
tel.: (450) 463-1717
email: nicolas.lagace at humanware.com
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