On Behalf Of Stuart Lawler Sent: 14 April 2010 18:44 Subject: [] Book of condolence for the late Torsten Brand Dear All, Torsten Brand, whose pioneering work helped make mobile phones accessible to the blind and partially sighted, died unexpectedly aged 47 on April 13th 2010 in Göttingen Germany as a result of complications after minor surgery. From his early days as a student of Mathematics at Hannover University, Torsten enjoyed working on the cutting edge of assistive technology, first under CP/M, and then using MS-DOS, at a time when refreshable Braille was still new. He developed the BW-PRO Braille driver for DOS, and later the HBSBUCH converter for creating on-screen eBooks from Braille-formatted content. Since 1994 Torsten collaborated in the design of ProTalk and ProTalk32 by Biolink, one of the first screen readers for Windows 3.11 and Windows NT, and still widely used to provide access by blind operators to corporate phone systems. Later Torsten specialized in adaptive scripting of screen readers for custom applications under Windows. In 2002, Torsten founded Brand and Groeber Communications in collaboration with Marcus Groeber. They soon had the Nokia Communicator Series 80 devices talking, and thereafter, developed Talks further to provide for speech to the Nokia S60 device range. The product was so successful that it was ultimately acquired by Nuance Communications, with the original duo of Torsten and Marcus continuing to act as product manager and developer respectively. A blind person himself, Torsten used the product he managed on a day to day bases, and as a result of this, worked hard to make it the best it could be. Through his efforts, Torsten has improved the lives of many tens of thousands of blind people throughout the world. Torsten's enthusiasm for his product went far beyond simply ensuring that it worked. He believed in ensuring that the product was not only the best in its class but also highly functional and feature rich together with being stable and simplistic to operate. If you can leave this world a better place than you found it, in whatever endeavour you pursue, your life has been worthwhile. Torsten led a most worthwhile, and worthy life. He has earned his place in the history of assistive technology. It is our hope to celebrate and honour this truly remarkable and dedicated pioneer of accessible technology through our signing of this condolence book. We would ask that if you have benefited from Torsten's work that you help us honour his memory through signing and leaving a comment. We shall be having entries printed and placed into a book of condolence which we shall then have sent to Torsten's family. This page gives you the opportunity to express your condolences to Torsten's family, friends and colleagues. You can sign the book and show your appreciation by visiting http://www.talknav.com/torsten Regards, Stuart. ==================== The vicsireland mailing list To unsubscribe at any time send a mail to: vicsireland-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe", without the quotes in the subject of the message. To contact the moderator send mail to: tim.j.culhane@xxxxxxxxx For mor information on the Visually Impaired Computer Society visit: http://www.vicsireland.org -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. We are a community of 7 million users fighting spam. SPAMfighter has removed 3148 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len The Professional version does not have this message ******************************************************************** National Council for the Blind of Ireland (NCBI) is a company limited by guarantee (registered in Ireland No. 26293) . Our registered office is at Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9. NCBI is also a registered Charity (chy4626). NOTICE: The information contained in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be privileged. If you are not the intended recipient you should not use, disclose, distribute or copy any of the content of it or of any attachment; you are requested to notify the sender immediately of your receipt of the email and then to delete it and any attachments from your system. NCBI endeavours to ensure that emails and any attachments generated by its staff are free from viruses or other contaminants. However, it cannot accept any responsibility for any such which are transmitted. We therefore recommend you scan all attachments. Please note that the statements and views expressed in this email and any attachments are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NCBI ********************************************************************