VisioVoice 1.0.1 (Universal) improves Access to Mac OS X for Vision Impaired Users

AssistiveWare released VisioVoice 1.0.1. VisioVoice is an award-winning product for blind and vision impaired Mac users providing a number of speech and vision related features to enhance access to Mac OS X. These include: (1) the conversion of Text, Word, HTML, PDF and RTF files to audio files or iPod-ready iTunes tracks; (2) a document and selection reader with fast forward and rewind functions; (3) Large cross-hair and target cursors; (4) Text and Image zoom windows; (5) Spoken interface elements as the user navigates across the screen; (6) Multilingual support to Apple's excellent VoiceOver technology (initially French and Dutch).

Version 1.0.1 contains the following enhancements:

• The Document Reader now also works with encrypted PDFs
• The Text Zoom and Talking Interface are now more responsive and more accurate
• The Selection Reader now works more reliably with text selected in Safari
• Voice volume and speech rate settings now work correctly [fix]
• Highlighting of spoken words now also works correctly for accented characters [fix]
• Several other fixes and improvements.

VisioVoice is bundled with Infovox iVox, which allows the naturally sounding, high quality voices of the Acapela Group to be used by any Speech Manager compliant application on Mac OS X, including Tiger's built-in VoiceOver screen reader. Infovox iVox includes all voices available for a language of choice. The following languages are available: US English, UK English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Introductory suggested retail pricing (25% discount) for the bundle of VisioVoice + Infovox iVox until 31 December 2006, excluding VAT, is $185 for all languages except Scandinavian (Scandinavian languages $289). Additional languages are half the price of Infovox iVox for that language. Volume licenses are also available.

VisioVoice is a universal binary and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. For more information, a fully-functional downloadable demo and to listen to samples of the voices please consult the VisioVoice product page. [Bill Fox]