Save With Serotek and win!!

The day after Thanksgiving, now known as "Black Friday", has become an annual tradition, marking the beginning of the holiday season. Retailers slash prices on the year's must-haves, and bargain hunters stampede the doors in a mad dash to get that last great deal,.
At Serotek, every day is Black Friday, except without the crowds. With low prices on assistive technology, 365 days a year; and with no SMA (software Maintenance Agreement), you’ll save at least $100 per year, for the rest of your life!

From 12:01 AM Eastern Standard Time on Black Friday, November 27, through 11:59 PM on Cyber Monday November 30, 2009, you could win your choice of either a
Victor Reader Stream, valued at $329
or the PLEXTALK Pocket PTP1, valued at $349. To become eligible to win, simply purchase one or more Serotek products listed below.

System Access Mobile Network For $129 per year or $14.95 per month.
includes audio tracks of described movies, thousands of Internet radio stations,
personalized news, podcasts, books, music, voice chat, blogging, your own web site, forums, email, instant messenging and remote computer access.
Use with System Access or any other screen reader you prefer.

System Access Screen Reader: on up to 2 computers for just $399
Get full access to Microsoft Windows 7, Vista and XP operating systems, and use all your favorite Windows applications for productivity, entertainment, and much more.

System Access Mobile For just $499
Harness the power of System Access on up to two computers, plus carry accessibility in your pocket on a U3 thumb drive. Plug the thumb drive in to any computer running Windows XP or later, and get instant access, with your own preferences and settings. When you're done, simply unplug the key and be on your way. No traces of System Access are left behind on the host computer.

System Access Atom Edition ($149)
License one netbook or any computer using the Atom processor for only $149.

NeoSpeech VoiceText with Three Human-sounding voices for Just $74.95
Kate, Julie and Paul are three voices to make your computer sound as human as possible.

Get the Most Popular Eloquence speech from Nuance for Only $25
For the most accurate pronunciation, and for those who like to read fast, Eloquence is it!

System Access Software As a Service, full buy-out with 48-month commitment
Get two screen reader licenses, network access, all voices, and take it on the go for $24.95 per month.

System Access Software As a Service, no strings attached
For just $39.95 per month, get two System Access computer licenses,
a third portable U3 license to use on any computer,
access to the SA Mobile Network, Eloquence and DECtalk text-to-speech,
Remote access to your home computer, and other users for training and support.
There are no long-term contracts, so you can cancel your subscription at any time.

Document Scan For just $159
Scan, read, save, and email printed material on any computer with a scanner.
Take Document Scan with you on a U3 drive, to make any computer a reading machine.
For $80 plus shipping, add a light, portable CanoScan USB scanner.

Surfboard all-in-one computer with System Access and 1 year of SAMNet starts at $999
At about the size of a PC keyboard, the unit is 18.25 inches long, 9 inches wide, 0.5 inches high in the front, and 2.5 inches high in the back, and weighs 7.4 pounds.
6 USB ports, 2 1394 FireWire ports, up to 3.2 GHz processor, up to 2GB main memory, and up to 250GB hard drive. Comes with System Access installed.

Netbooks Start at $799 with Speech, or $599 Without
Netbooks currently offered include: the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and the MSI Wind Netbook

The winner will be announced Tuesday, December 1st at 10 AM Eastern U.S.

If you have an account with either samobile.net or satogo.com, go to

https://secure.samobile.net/login.html?next_url=/signup/order_start

If you have never created an account with samobile.net or satogo.com, go to

https://secure.samobile.net/signup/account_info.html

To order by phone, call either Friday, November 27, or Monday, November 30 between the hours of 10 AM and 10 PM Eastern U.S. at 866-202-0520.

So give yourself, or someone you care about the holiday gift of accessibility anywhere!
And while doing so, you might just win your choice of either a Victor Reader Stream, or a PLEXTALK Pocket; from Serotek corporation, where low prices and great support make every day Black Friday.

SHINANO KENSHI CORPORATION-LLC (SKC) TEAMS WITH SEROTEK CORPORATION FOR PRODUCT COMPATIBILITY

PLEXTALK® Pocket (PTP1) Digital Talking Book Player now enables transfer of SAMNet™ content.
Los Angeles, CA – November 17, 2009 – Shinano Kenshi Corporation-LLC (SKC) has aligned with Serotek Corporation, a leading provider of internet and digital information accessibility software and services, to enable Serotek’s family of System Access products to be used with Shinano Kenshi’s PLEXTALK® Pocket (PTP1) digital talking book player/recorders (DTBP). The alliance allows content from the System Access Mobile Network (SAMNet™) to be transferred to the PLEXTALK® Pocket.
The PLEXTALK® Pocket is a lightweight, pocket-sized, DAISY-compliant music, voice, and book player/recorder that offers revolutionary mobility and ease of use by nearly anyone in business, education, and leisure. SAMNet™ is Serotek's renowned Internet Community that delivers the widest and most complete content ever assembled for the blind. With access to email, news, described video service for thousands of movies, blogs, podcasts, streaming radio and more, subscribers can connect with other subscribers as well as remotely access their own computers from anywhere in the world. SAMNet™ represents just one of Serotek’s System Access branded products that is now compatible with the PLEXTALK® Pocket. “We are very pleased to be able to partner with Serotek,” said Rex Bergsma, CEO, Shinano Kenshi Corporation—North America. “Serotek’s software solutions enable many who are visually impaired to have wide ranging access to the Internet. That access is further enhanced by the fact that Serotek’s powerful family of System Access software products are compatible with Shinano Kenshi’s PLEXTALK® Pocket.” “We are very excited about our new alliance with Serotek,” said Deana Valdez, Sales & Marketing Manager for North America—PLEXTALK®. “This new opportunity provides additional benefits to PLEXTALK® Pocket users, because they can now enjoy expanded usability of their device.”
“The mobility of this product is what first interested Serotek in the alliance,” said Mike Calvo, CEO, Serotek Corporation, “Shinano Kenshi shares our commitment to accessibility anywhere and we’re excited to offer the marketplace even greater compatibility among products from both organizations.” PLEXTALK® Pocket is available online at
http://www.plextalk.com
The System Access family of products and services is available online at
http://www.serotek.com
or by calling 1-866-202-0520
About the Companies
Shinano Kenshi Co., Shinano Kenshi Corporation & PLEXTALK®Shinano Kenshi Co. Ltd. is responsible for the development and manufacture of digital talking book players and other products sold under the brand name of PLEXTALK®. Shinano and PLEXTALK® assistive products are created to improve the quality of life, self-reliance and independence of their users. Shinano Kenshi Corporation is the North American subsidiary of Shinano Kenshi Co.,Ltd. For More Information Contact:
Deana Valdez, Sales and Marketing Manager for North America—
PLEXTALK®Shinano Kenshi Corp.
Phone: 310-693-7629
dvaldez@shinano.com
Shinano Kenshi Corporation
6065 Bristol Parkway
Culver City, CA 90230
Phone: 310-693-7600
Fax: 310-693-7599
Serotek Corporation
Committed to the mission of providing accessibility anywhere, Serotek Corporation develops software and manufactures accessibility solutions that make it possible for anyone, regardless of sight or physical limitation, lack of Internet savvy or access to a mouse, keyboard, or screen, to not only have access to and command of all of the resources of the Internet, but also, to operate most any digital information device with minimal training and investment. For more information, visit
http://www.serotek.com
Media Contact:
pr@serotek.com
1-866-202-0520, extension 105
Serotek Corporation
1128 Harmon Place, Suite 310
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55403, USA

What I think About the Intel Reader

Yesterday marked the release of a product which, according to Intel, would revolutionize the way the blind and others with reading disabilities accessed printed materials. During those few fleeting moments between hearing of the announcement and reading the actual press release, I had high hopes that a mainstream company would demonstrate its dedication to accessibility and innovation at an affordable price. And with backing from companies and organizations such as Humanware, Lighthouse International and the Council for Exceptional Children, I felt certain that the device I was going to read about would be very impressive indeed.

The Intel Reader, a device about the size of a paperback and weighing approximately 1 pound, is equipped with a camera and text-to-speech allowing print documents such as newspapers, menus, and signs to be converted in to a readable form by the blind and others with print disabilities. With the addition of a capturing station, sold separately, the device can be used to scan and convert more lengthy materials such as textbooks and novels. It can also read existing etexts in Daisy format as well as play standard MP3 and Wav files. This feature set reads quite a bit like other mainstream and custom-built solutions on the market. In fact, the only jaw-dropping aspect of this product is its price. The device itself can be had for a mere $1499, and you’ll pay an extra $399 for the privilege of using the capturing station.

After the initial shock, I and many others in the blind community began looking more closely at the information available about the device, just to ensure that we hadn’t overlooked anything truly awe-inspiring. After all, for its price, there had to be something which set the device apart from existing solutions such as the KNFB Reader for performing OCR on documents on the go, the forthcoming free e-reader from Kurzweil to read existing Daisy documents, off-the-shelf solutions like a PC, scanner, and ABBYY FineReader for more involved projects like scanning textbooks, or even the $259 Amazon Kindle, which isn’t currently accessible but could be made so with a little effort and encouragement from the community.

As we learned more about the Intel Reader, there was plenty to make this device unique. First, while most portable scanning solutions like the KNFB reader for mobile phones or a scanner/Netbook combo are equipped with wi-fi access, the Intel Reader can’t make that claim. In this article from VentureBeat it is stated that wi-fi is absent from the product because web-connected devices aren’t allowed in some classrooms. Far be it from us to suggest including wi-fi and leaving it up to school IT professionals to handle whether or not to grant wi-fi access, as they must do for all other wi-fi-equipped mainstream devices.

In addition to having no wi-fi capabilities, the device is also unable to handle HTML content natively. Rather, a user must first convert the HtML document to plain text before it can be read. This doesn’t bode well for a device whose major goal is purportedly to take the hassle out of reading for the blind and print-disabled.

Given that this device appears to boast no significant features setting it apart in a positive way from existing solutions, we must ask why the device was created in the first place. Ben Foss, the Intel representative spear-heading the project, has a lot to say on this. Foss states in a press conference: “A metaphor for this are the ramps that make buildings wheelchair accessible. This reader is like a ramp.” Unfortunately, this particular metaphor is far from apt. While wheelchair ramps are an example of smart universal design principles in action because they’re just as useful to a walking mother with a stroller as they are to a person in a wheelchair, the Intel reader has been manufactured and marketed exclusively for the blind and print-disabled without a thought for universal design. Foss goes on to acknowledge that the price is not cheap, but guess what, folks? It’s ok. You see, the device contains several custom components. Never mind that the essential components are a 5-megapixel camera, flash memory, and Intel’s own low-cost Atom processor which can all be had for under $250 as parts. Are you questioning the price yet? No, don’t do that. Intel can explain. Braille reading devices can cost upwards of $10000, so $1500 is really easy to swallow in comparison to that, isn’t it? Never mind that comparing Braille displays and text-to-speech readers makes little sense.

In essence, Intel is unapologetically asking us to accept this device’s hefty price tag for no other reason than that it was designed specifically for the blind. Are we going to accept being blatantly charged a premium because of our blindness, especially by a company who claims to have a philanthropic bent? Remember Intel’s Classmate PC, whose aim was to provide a low-cost and rugged netbook to students, especially those in developing countries? How can we take initiatives like that seriously when with this device Intel clearly shows it isn’t interested in providing low-cost solutions to the blind students in its own back yard?

Still, Intel didn’t create this device in a vacuum. “Intel has done its homework on the device,”, says Dorrie Rush, who serves as the marketing director for Lighthouse International. This signifies that Intel received input from blind and print-disabled individuals as it designed the product. So why is it that no one from these groups questioned Intel’s decision to reinvent the wheel, and in a completely lackluster way at that. Why did no one from these groups encourage Intel to combine existing components to create an innovative and affordable product that could be beneficial to all?

No matter how stunning a product Intel created, it still needed the backing of influential groups within the blind community in order to be taken seriously. For Humanware, who is among the companies distributing the product, partnering with one of the most lucrative and well-known mainstream companies was a huge accomplishment. Did Humanware leverage this relationship to educate Intel so that at least one mainstream company would design its products with accessibility in mind from the ground up? No! It did not! Humanware thanked Intel for producing yet another overpriced, sub par blind ghetto product, and jumped on the chance to convince millions of blind and print-disabled people that they need look no further than this bulky and expensive device to further their independence. When a mainstream company like Intel employs such tactics it is shameful. But from Humanware, a company who should by all rights have the interests of blind consumers at heart, these actions are nothing less than despicable.

Because of Intel’s status and high visibility, its new product rated mentions in mainstream publications as well as those which are more blindness-oriented. In this somewhat flippant article from Engadget, the authors posit that a device like the Intel reader could be created for under $500, and I suspect they’re right. But the interesting reading isn’t so much the article itself, but the comments. One post says in part: “Sure, you could build something that did something similar for less money, but would you then be able to give it to a nearly blind person to use all day, everyday? Completely implausible for $500.” This same poster goes on to say: “besides, the target audience for this device is disabled -- it should be paid for by 3rd parties because it meets the requirements to be classed as an aide for the disabled.”

And there you have it -- everything that we despise about this product’s existence all wrapped up in a smug, condescending little package and tied with a bow. Essentially, this poster believes that nothing which wasn’t created specifically for the blind could possibly work well in a day-to-day situation. Not only that, but there are apparently an abundance of tax dollars to go around for purchasing overpriced devices. And luckily, the blind person need not ever make a decision as a consumer since there’s a benevolent 3rd-party agency to take care of such things, rendering the process of making choices for oneself unnecessary.

So, are we, as a community, going to let this stand? Are we going to throw our support behind Intel, who spent countless hours and research funds to offer us a third-rate product which is priced out of our reach? Are we going to put our hard-earned money in the pockets of Humanware, who squandered their one chance to truly shape the direction of accessibility in mainstream technology in favor of making a quick profit? Do we want to continue accepting the pronouncement that blind ghetto products are not only necessary, but worthy of our everlasting gratitude? Or are we going to tear down those ghetto walls and demand our rightful place as the smart and savvy consumers that we are!

And before you say that you’re only one consumer, that your voice will never be heard, I will tell you that you’re wrong. You can make a choice to be educated about what you buy before you make a decision. And once you embrace the power to choose, you’ll want to share that power., and you won’t want to stop with just one person. You’ll tell every blind person you know to stop and think before choosing a product which has no claim to fame other than being designed for the blind. You’ll tell the blindness agencies and school systems who already struggle with tight budgets to stop and investigate before accepting the party line and purchasing something which does half as much at twice the price. And to those companies who are banking on your willingness to accept anything less than the best just because it’s been given the stamp of accessibility, the sound of your wallet slamming shut an the realization that you are actually “a consumer” with a functional brain and an opinion will convey your point quite eloquently indeed!