Microsoft Reader Integration Takes More eBooks to Visually Impaired

Microsoft and Pulse Data have announced an agreement for the integration of Microsoft Reader into Pulse Data's BrailleNote family of WindowsCE-based PDA for visually impaired readers. BrailleNote's PDAs are screenless devices that give feedback through speech and electronic Braille.

According to Jim Halliday, president of HumanWare Inc., the North American distributor of BrailleNote, the integration with Microsoft Reader means that "blind people will have virtually instant access to literally thousands of titles that would take months or years to create through traditional paper Braille publishing."

To read an electronic book with BrailleNote, users will need to download an eBook title from an online distributor to their BrailleNote device, then open the file. They will have the option to listen to the speech version of the eBook or read the electronic Braille display.

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