HumanWare Communicator a Great Tool For Deaf-Blind Communication

HumanWare recently released the HumanWare Communicator app for iOS devices. The app is designed to make communication between a deaf-blind person and a sighted person possible.When the conversation is started an introduction is displayed for the sighted user to read. The deaf-blind person uses a Bluetooth braille display to type a message to a sighted person, this message appears on the screen of the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.  Then the sighted user can respond using the virtual keyboard and the message will appear on the refreshable braille display. The conversation can then go back and forth with the deaf-blind person typing on the braille display and the sighted user typing on the device's virtual keyboard.

HumanWare describes the app as follows,

"The HumanWare Communicator application is intended to establish a text conversation, through a chat window, between a deaf-blind person and a sighted person. All interaction appears both on the deaf-blind person's refreshable Braille display, as well as visually on the screen of the iOS device."

The HumanWare communicator is available in the App Store for $99.99 for devices running iOS 5.1 or higher. To view screen shots of the HumanWare Communicator app in action click read more below.

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Read PDF Files Aloud with vBooks PDF Voice Reader

vBooks PDF Voice Reader is an app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that reads PDFs aloud using text-to-speech. The app has a similar interface to iBook. vBooks PDF Voice Reader comes with a male and female text-to-speech voice included with app. The included text-to-speech voices sound good and are easy to understand. To read a PDF simply tap on the front page of the PDF from the bookshelf and then press the red play button on the bottom of the screen. The text can be read at speeds of 100 words per minute all the way up to 240 words per minute. The app has a cursor that highlights the word being read and you can drag the cursor around to start reading a different part of the PDF. The app also has navigation features such as search, thumbnails and sliders. PDFs can be imported into vBooks PDF Voice Reader by using the "open in" feature from apps such as mail or iTunes sync. vBookz does not have OCR capabilities so images with text will not be compatible. Another downside is that there is no bookmarking feature and the app will not remember where you left off so you will have to find where you left off each time. To learn more about OCR click here. vBookz PDF Voice Reader costs $4.99 in the App Store.

vBookz requested the following be included in the review,

"We're open for requests and suggestions. Not everything can be implemented, but it is important for us to improve our products as much as we can".

For more information about zBookz click read more below.

App provided complimentary to reviewer

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