[the-facts-machine] Fwd: Leading libraries deliver audio books directly to new wireless Victor Reader talking book players

From: Richard McKinley <mcfurbie@xxxxxxxxx>
To: The Facts Machine <the-facts-machine@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2014 10:40:15 -0600
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Leading libraries deliver audio books directly to new wireless Victor Reader 
talking book players

Victor Reader, the world’s most successful talking book player for blind and 
low vision people, offers new wireless Internet connectivity features for both 
the Victor Reader Stratus and Victor Reader Stream models. This new way of 
downloading allows users to get DAISY audiobooks directly on their Victor 
Reader without having to use a computer or wait for a CD in the mail. 

In 1999, the first Victor Reader played digital CD books distributed to users 
by free postal delivery. Now, with wireless connectivity, libraries for the 
blind are delivering digital talking books, magazines, and newspapers directly 
to the newest Victor Reader players over the Internet. Never in the 70 years of 
talking books for the blind has the book been delivered so quickly and easily.


Learn more about direct to player solutions

Sweden boasts great success with this new technology. In partnership with the 
DAISY Consortium and HumanWare, the Swedish Agency for Accessible Media - MTM 
now delivers the daily newspaper directly to the Victor Reader Stratus players 
of more than 6000 blind and low vision people. Using its new wireless 3G 
capability, the Stratus connects to the MTM newspaper service and without any 
intervention by the user or need for a computer, the Stratus downloads the 
newspaper. The user wakes up in the morning and simply presses the Play button 
of their Victor Reader Stratus to listen to their daily newspaper. Thousands of 
Swedish blind and low vision people who cannot read print are now again 
enjoying newspapers. The newspaper download service uses the DAISY Online 
Delivery web service developed by the DAISY Consortium. This same service can 
also be used to download talking books from partnering DAISY libraries around 
the world. 

For example, in Canada, the CNIB Library has announced a new Direct to Player 
service. Using the same DAISY Online Delivery service, CNIB clients now can 
have their DAISY talking books delivered directly to their Victor Reader 
Stratus over the Internet without need to use a computer. After listening to 
the book, simply press the RETURN Book button and another book will 
automatically download to the player. No longer will CNIB clients need to wait 
for CD books to be delivered in the mail nor will they need to learn technical 
skills to download books with a computer. 

In the USA, the Victor Reader Stream pocket sized player has also gone 
wireless. With the Stream’s new Wi-Fi capability, members of the acclaimed 
Bookshare.org library service are able to browse, search and download from the 
growing collection of 200,000 books including educational texts, reference 
books, and works of fiction. Again, no computer is needed - the Victor Reader 
Stream does it all.

Also in the United States, members of the National Federation of the Blind NFB 
Newsline Service can now have their daily newspaper transmitted directly to 
their Victor Reader Stream. 

And most recently, in February 2014, the latest version 4.3 software for the 
Stream introduced a new Internet Radio app as well as access to the well-known 
Wikipedia and Wiktionary online reference services.

Through HumanWare’s partnership with ooTunes Radio, Stream users may search 
over 36,000 radio stations worldwide and add any station of interest to a 
Favorites list. Also, while reading books, users may highlight a word and get 
its definition from the Internet Wiktionary service. And to help the audio book 
reader with their research, simply text a search phrase on the Stream keypad 
and the Stream will find and download the relevant article from Wikipedia. The 
user may navigate the article like a DAISY book and even save it on the Stream 
for later study.

With over 15 years in the global marketplace and over 500,000 players in use, 
HumanWare continues to innovate with Victor Reader. Now, Victor Reader extends 
its talking book, document, and music playback features, to the wireless world 
where downloaded books and newspapers, streaming radio stations, and online 
Wikipedia reference tools become part of Victor Reader’s increasing access to 
digital content. And best of all, users continue to navigate the new online 
content through the player’s popular and simple to use bookshelf interface. 

Learn more about Direct to player solutions


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[the-facts-machine] Fwd: Leading libraries deliver audio books directly to new wireless Victor Reader talking book players

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