all categories Deals, Sales, and News

If you're looking to sell your own personal used equipment, try our new forums. Beth just listed several items including a Powerbraille braille display, a BrailleNote 32-cell unit, and several books from National Braille Press. Registering and posting in our forums is free, and you can post your items for sale or trade in the Swap Meet.. Who knows, we may feature your post on the home page.

Sendero Group offers the Voice Sense PDA bundled with the Sense Nav GPS software for $3,549. Even with $45 for shipping, this is still at least $350 off retail, and the cheapest we were able to find this particular package. The Voice Sense PDA features a 540-MHZ processor, 1GB flash memory, built-in WiFi, bluetooth, and both a CompactFlash and Secure Digital slot. The Sense Nav GPS software, running off the Sendero SDK, is quite similar to the GPS software found on the BrailleNote family of PDA's.

IndependentLiving.com has the Lady's Silver Tone Braille Talking Watch for $54.95. And that $10 off coupon we keep mentioning, 10ws, knocks the price to $44.95. Add about $7 for shipping. According to the description, there are several variants of this combo braille and talking one button watch, including models with and without alarms. Deal ends February 29.

Some sites post the best of other blogs. This aggregator from Blind Planet, however, posts everything from just about any blindness-related blog or feed you could think of, including our own site. New posts show up in real-time, and cover everything from the Desert Skies blog to corporate blogs from major assistive technology companies.

If you're looking to add something cool to your own website, don't forget about our Blind Bargains latest deals feed. With a simple cut and paste of code, you can add the latest five headlines, or some other number you choose, to any page on your site. Plus, it's totally free. Check the link on this post for details. If you add the code, let us know and we may feature your site in an upcoming post.

Independent Living Aids takes $10 off a purchase of $50 or more with coupon code "10WS". It's the best coupon we've seen from this site, which sells primarily blindness and low-vision products. The coupon is only good when placing orders online. Deal ends February 29.

It's no secret why Top Tech Tidbits won a Blind Bargains Access Award for best blindness-related website. This week's issue has tips on everything from Skype call recording to the LevelStar icon and everything in between. Read the latest issue, then subscribe like we do so you don't miss the next one.

If it's any comfort to the Ranger Station blog, you're not the last place to report on the release of OpenBook 8.0. We figured we probably should mention the latest version of Freedom Scientific's scanning and OCR product sooner rather than later. All kidding aside, this upgrade looks pretty packed with features and includes better OCR engines, new speech synthesizers, better keyboard integration with JAWS and MAGic, better support for currency reading, and a laundry list of other improvements. It's $150 for current users to upgrade or $995 for a new copy.

Today only, Supermediastore.com has the A-Data 8GB USB 2.0 flash drive for $24.99. It's shipped free after a $5 mail-in rebate. Unlike memory cards, flash drives, generally speaking, are universally compatible with any device with a USB port for storage, such as a Braille Note or laptop computer.

The Associated Services for the Blind is offering a coupon off $5 off when filling out a short online survey. The site, based in Philadelphia, produces braille books by hundreds of authors and also has several recorded periodicals available.

A new kind of checking generic valium 5mg has been introduced that provides unlimited refunds
of surcharges from automatic teller machines, allowing blind people to use any talking
ATM free without fee or extra charges. Kelly Pierce explains how to do it and which banks offer this very useful service.

Gerry Chevalier, Victor Reader Product Manager for HumanWare was featured tonight at AccessibleWorld.org and discussed the upcoming version 1.2 software for the Victor Reader Stream. As announced previously, there is now a built-in SD card format utility, support for NIMAS textbooks and content from the Serotek System Access Mobile Network, improved transfer speeds directly with the stream, increased volume of the built-in speaker, and a pitch control for the Vocalizer voice. Regarding the music bookshelf, there are now separate bass and treble controls, file and folder names are only announced when the player is stopped, and a go-to-time feature has been implemented. Windows Media Audio and BRF support is forthcoming, possibly in two to three months. Version 1.2 of the Victor Reader Stream firmware is expected to be shipped by the 21st of February, however this release has already been pushed back once.

The variety of accessible phone choices has exploded in the past year, and we'll be highlighting the current options for several U.S. carriers over the coming days. Today, check our new Amazon page of accessible phones available for Verizon. Eight phones are included ranging from low-end LG phones that talk out of the box to smart phone solutions that run Mobile Speak Smart Phone or Mobile Speak Pocket. Most are quite reasonably priced with a new contract. Watch for new pages for other providers in the coming days.

If you're going to the CSUN technology conference this March and are interested in helping us cover the proceedings, please send us a note. No prior experience is necessary. Write us for details.

An EBay seller has listed a Braille 'n Speak notetaker, model BS2, with a current bid of $50. Add about $7 for shipping. This item worked the last time it was used but is untested and does not come with cables. We still think the Braille 'n Speak is a great first notetaker for a child or a good backup. Auction ends late on February 24.

Amazon.com has Nuance's Dragon NaturallySpeaking Professional version 9 for $759.99. Plus, shipping is free. This is Nuance's high-end voice recognition software. It also works with the J-Say script package which enhances functionality with JAWS.

We're posting more and more bargains and news items to our site, so you may have missed something, especially if you haven't stopped by in awhile. Now, look for the page 2 link at the bottom of the deals on the home page. It's right above the "Most Popular" heading. It'll take you to another page with the next 50 news items so you can catch up. Also, don't forget about our RSS feed and Email newsletter, both available under the "Other Features" heading on the home page.

There's some new goodies on the KNFB Reader website. They'll all require you to create an account, which you can do by following the link on this post. Once you've done that, you can get an MP3 tutorial for the KNFB Reader Mobile, manuals and fact sheets in both TXT and PDF format, and a download of the software. Don't get too excited about the download, though, since you'll need to activate it to get any real functionality out of it. But the posting of the software on this site should mean that dealers will be able to activate it very soon.

Two new articles have been posted to the AFB AccessWorld page. First up is a review of Zoom-Ex and Zoom-Twix, one of the fastest and portable OCR products available. Also, AccessWorld offers their take on the much-publicized KNFB Reader Mobile.

There's another batch of I.D. Mate II portable bar code readers on EBay, again for $450 plus $25 for shipping. Or, use EBay's best offer feature and see if they'll take a bit less. They're actually sold by En-Vision America, makers of the handheld item identification devices. Listing ends February 20.