[gui-talk] Fwd: Freedom Scientific Reduces PAC Mate Price - and Releases FREE 6.5Update

[Steve Pattison]

 From:  Susan Thompson susan at sthompson.net
 To:      VIP-L vip-l at freelists.org

-----Original Message-----

To: Acb List

Even though this is US pricing, I thought it worth people knowing.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact: Brad Davis
800-444-4443 or 727-803-8000
www.FreedomScientific.com
Sales: info at FreedomScientific.com

The World's Most Powerful Notetaker Just Got More Affordable

Freedom Scientific Reduces PAC Mate Price and Releases FREE 6.5 Update

(St.  Petersburg, Florida ?September 30, 2010) ?Freedom Scientific
today announced a $900 price reduction on its PAC Mate Omni accessible
Pocket PCs while releasing a FREE firmware update for existing users.

The new prices are:

PAC Mate Omni Speech Only ?$1,495 reduced from $2,395

PAC Mate Omni with 20 cells of Braille ?$2,895 reduced from
$3,795

PAC Mate Omni with 40 cells of Braille ?$4,695 reduced from
$5,595

Already an industry leader in accessible mobile functionality for the
blind, the PAC Mate Omni is now the clear leader in affordability, offering
40 cells of Braille for about 25 percent less than what competitors charge
for a notetaker with just 32 cells.

“While other manufacturers are raising prices, Freedom Scientific is making
assistive technology more widely available by passing savings in our
manufacturing processes onto our customers,?says Jonathan Mosen, Freedom
Scientific’s Vice President of Blindness Hardware Product Management.

“This is our third major price reduction this year.  We reduced our Focus
40 Blue Braille Displays by 38 percent in March, and we lowered the price
of our MAGic Screen Magnification Software by $100 in June.?

This price reduction coincides with the posting of the 6.5 release for
English language users that expands the PAC Mate Omni’s capabilities with
an array of new features:

RealSpeak Voices
Since Freedom Scientific introduced the RealSpeak voices in JAW, MAGic, and
OpenBook, many customers have enjoyed the more natural sound, particularly
for reading lengthy texts.  Many have asked for these voices with the PAC
Mate Omni.  With Release 6.5, you can easily switch between Eloquence and
RealSpeak synthesized speech with a simple command from anywhere on the PAC
Mate Omni.

RealSpeak is available in many languages, further heightening the PAC Mate
Omni’s appeal among those who work with multiple languages.

Expanded settings dialogs in the PAC Mate Omni 6.5 provide thorough,
independent control over primary and secondary voices and Braille languages.

Unified Instant Messaging with Mundu?IM
The PAC Mate Omni continues to offer free Windows Live Messenger support
out of the box.  With the 6.5 release, we’ve added support for Mundu IM, a
unified instant messaging solution supporting a number of services
including MSN, Yahoo, ICQ,  AIM, Google, and Jabber.  Chat with your
buddies in real time, no matter what the service.  The PAC Mate Omni with
Mundu IM gives the deaf blind access to the many relay services that
interface with AOL, and instant messaging is available in contracted
Braille, letting messages fly back and forth even faster.  Mundu IM is
available for purchase separately.

Built-in FSReader DAISY Player
Freedom Scientific's FSReader software opens a world of accessible reading
material for the visually impaired.  Used with Digital Accessible
Information System (DAISY)-formatted talking books, FSReader delivers a
host of powerful navigation tools for
reading:

Go directly to a specific chapter, heading, or page Set an unlimited number
of annotated bookmarks Speed up or slow down speech whether listening to a
recorded narrator or synthesized speech Download or purchase on CD DAISY
2.0 and DAISY 3.0 e-books (the ANSI/NISO standard) like those available
from www.Bookshare.org, and browse, read, and study.  Play AudioPlus books
from Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D).

There are numerous other enhancements and performance improvements in the
PAC Mate 6.5.  Coupled with the powerful Microsoft Office support, e-mail
options, and other applications already in the PAC Mate, the 6.5 release
continues to broaden the range of tasks one can accomplish on the go with
this multi-faceted device.

Release 6.5 is available as a free download from the Freedom Scientific Web
site at
http://www.freedomscientific.com/downloads/pacmate/pacmate-omni65
-update-dl.asp.

To learn more about accessing the many capabilities of the PAC Mate Omni,
register for our free Webinar on October 5, 2010 ast
http://www.freedomscientific.com/Training/e-LearningEntrance.asp.  
Or check out the DAISY books at the PAC Mate training downloads page at
http://www.freedomscientific.com/Training/PACMate-training-hq.asp

Regards Steve
Email:  srp at internode.on.net
MSN Messenger:  internetuser383 at hotmail.com
Skype:  steve1963
Twitter:  steve9782