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We profusely thank Allison from Benetech for her wonderfully written
summarization of Jim Fruchterman's Main Menu interview held on February 26,
2008 on ACB Radio Mainstream. Her message is below:

Hello Everyone,

I just finished listening to an interview of Jim fruchterman on ACB Radio.
I found it very informative. I realize that the audio format may not be
accessible to everyone, particularly deaf and blind individuals. I took
notes during the meeting, and would like to share them with others. I
believe I got down most of the important information. If you have questions
or comments, E-mail me at allisonh (at) benetech.org.

Jim fruchterman Interview.
ACB Radio
Tuesday, February 26, 2008.

* Bookshare.org is a legal website where people can download accessible
digital books.
* Jim got the idea from his son using Napster in the 90s.
* Bookshare has several formats including Daisy, BRF (Braille), HTML, and
XML.
* 90% of books on Bookshare are donated by members.
* Bookshare books are text and not human narrated.
* VR Reader Soft does not yet work with Mac computers.
* Mac users can use Win or K1000 to use Daisy books. There are also hardware
options.
* Bookshare memberships cost $75 for the first year and $50 for each year
after that.
* There are free memberships for students paid for by the department of
education.
* Benetech is hoping to reach 100,000 students over time.
*Most textbooks will be available to all members except for NIMAC K-12
books.
* NIMAC stands for National Instructional Material Accessibility Center. New
laws are requiring publishers to provide NIMAC quality books for all K-12
textbooks.
* Bookshare is beginning to add NIMAC books to the collection. These books
are only available to K-12 students.
* Jim said that he and several people advocated for other individuals, such
as blind parents, to have access to NIMAC books, but the publishers
resisted.
* If one sends a book to Bookshare, we will scan it with a turn around of
approximately 3-4 weeks.
* Benetech is working on a partnership with a major book publisher that will
allow a user who is looking for a certain book to click a link on the site,
request the book, buy it, the publisher will scan it, and send to Bookshare
where it will be ran through OCR. Approximately 6-9 months in the works.
*Most of the books on Bookshare are "trade books."
* Bookshare has literature, best sellers, and nonfiction books.
* we have a growing collection of textbooks for both college and K-12
students.
* Several thousand new textbooks will be made available over the next couple
of years.
* One can download newspapers and magazines from Bookshare. There are
currently 150 papers available.
* Bookshare is working on developing a collection of reference books.
* The Harper Collins books are available world-wide.
* WE are currently adding books from Harper Collins to the collection. We
have so many that we aren't able to get synopses uploaded with each one.
* Bookshare does not want to hold back on publishing books before a synopsis
can be written.
* Bookshare is working on a system in which a book's synopsis can be
automatically included with a book through one providing the book's ISBN.
This is not an option yet, but in the works.
* We are working on adding book synopses. If you would like to suggest a
synopsis for a book, E-mail it to allisonh@benetech.org. Note that synopses
from Amazon and other websites are not permitted.
* Individuals can sign up to volunteer for Bookshare by submitting or
validating books. To learn more, visit our website or E-mail
volunteer@bookshare.org.
* One does not need to be disabled in order to be a volunteer.
* Jim says that this year is a year of transition as we are adding new
books, new members, and new assistive technology.
* There are two Bookshare E-mail lists that interested individuals can join.
Visit the Bookshare website or www.freelists.org to learn more.
* Jim encouraged everyone to sign up for Bookshare by visiting

www.bookshare.org.

This concludes my summary of the ACB Radio Jim fruchterman Interview. I
tried to record all the information, but it is possible that I have left
something out. If you have questions or comments, please contact me using
the info provided at the bottom of this message.

Best,

Allison Hilliker
Benetech (Bookshare.org).
E-mail allisonh (at) benetech.org
www.bookshare.org

The Benetech Initiative – Technology Serving Humanity – A Nonprofit
Organization

This week on Main Menu, during the first hour we hear from Doug Geoffray and
Aaron Smith from GW Micro all about the exciting new upcoming Window-Eyes
version 7.0. This release offers many new features, most notably its new
scripting capabilities. Doug and Aaron come on to Main Menu and discuss
with all of you all of this new exciting technology. In addition, we will
have a very special announcement about some future presentations on Main
Menu for those that are interested in learning scripting. Come find out
more about this exciting new release and get your questions answered.

In the second hour we will not be live and will be presenting a review of
the Ultracane.

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.

You may email your questions to: mainmenu@acbradio.org
You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is: mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:

main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live – http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team

Marlaina from ACB Radio reminds us all about an upcoming FCC workshop
covering the impact of the impending digital television (DTV) conversion on
people with disabilities.

This subject arose on my show this evening, and i promised to post this far
and wide. Here is a copy of the e-mail I received from Jill Pender of the
FCC regarding their upcoming workshop on conversion from analog to digital
tv. Let's keep asking why our video description has not been restored. Or,
when might we expect it to be restored.

Marlaina:

I am so glad that you are interested in the February 28 workshop. Eric
Bridges, Director of Advocacy and Government for the American Council of the
Blind will be participating as a panelist and we are looking forward to his
remarks.

A live, open-captioned webcast of the hearing will be available at the FCC's
website at http://www.fcc.gov/realaudio/#feb28 on a first-come, first-served
basis. The webcast will remain available after the Workshop in the FCC's
website archives.

We also encourage questions from listeners. During the Workshop, the public
can e-mail questions for the panelists to dtvworkshop@fcc.gov .

If you have any more questions about the program, feel free to email me
directly or call me at 202-418-2947.
Jill Pender
Attorney-Advisor
Consumer Bureau – FCC

Hello Everyone,

This week we present a special 2 hour Main Menu Live all about things
learned at the ATIA conference in Florida. J.J. Meddaugh and Matt attended
the conference and we will be reviewing the conference with them. Here is
what you will hear among other things:

* Doug Geoffray from GW Micro announced Window-Eyes 7.0 with the major new
feature being scripting. In addition to playing an interview about this
exciting new enhancement for Window-Eyes, we provide a demonstration of
Window-Eyes 7.0 working inside of Winamp with scripts that enhance its
capabilities that will be available when Window-Eyes 7.0 releases.

* AIR (standing for Accessibility is a Right). We talk with everyone about
this new foundation and now free screen reader.

* Serotek talked all about The Accessible Digital Lifestyle and made some
major announcements.

* The new KNFB Mobile Reader that runs on a cell phone is out and we talk
all about its capabilities. We will have much more to say about this on a
future episode of Main Menu soon as well.

* We will talk about Optelec, HumanWare, Code Factory, Freedom Scientific
and more.

Here is how to participate in the show:

The number to call into the show is 866-400-5333.

You may email your questions to:

mainmenu@acbradio.org

You may also interact with the show via MSN (Windows Live) Messenger. The
MSN Messenger ID to add is:

mainmenu@acbradio.org

Would you like to interact with a group of Main Menu listeners about the
topics heard on Main Menu and Main Menu Live? You can do this by joining the
Main
Menu Friends email list. The address to subscribe is:

main-menu-subscribe@googlegroups.com

Come join an already lively group of users.

Would you like to subscribe to podcast feeds for Main Menu and Main Menu
Live? The RSS feeds to add to your podcatching application are:

Main Menu –http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenu
Main Menu Live –http://www.acbradio.org/podcasts/mainmenulive

Main Menu can be heard on Tuesday evenings at 8:00 Eastern, 5:00 Pacific,
and at 1 universal (GMT) on Wednesday mornings on the ACB Radio Main Stream
channel.

Follow this link to listen to the show:

http://www.acbradio.org/pweb/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=8

Jeff Bishop and Darrell Shandrow
The Main Menu Production Team

This is an announcement posted publicly to describe all the incredible
enhancements in store for those of us who own the Victor Reader Stream.
Karen and I have one of these excellent devices, and if you don't yet have a
portable accessible electronic book reader, we would strongly recommend
Victor Reader Stream!

Dear Victor Reader Stream Customer:

I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2008. The first couple of weeks
of 2008 have seen our R&D engineers hard at work continuing to add exciting
new features to the Stream in pursuit of our goal of responding to your
feedback to help us make the Stream the best DAISY, NISO and MP3 player in
the market place.

This email will summarize recent Stream activities, provide news from RFB&D,
and give a sneak preview of the next software release version 1.2 expected
in just a few weeks.

Many of you will recall we closed for the Christmas break releasing the
Stream Companion software and offering a very comprehensive audio tutorial
for the Stream. Both the Stream Companion and tutorial are now part of the
CD that is shipping with the Stream and both are also available for free
download from the Stream product page for existing customers. Please visit

http://www.humanware.ca/stream.html
And look under the documentation and software sub headings to take advantage
of these Stream resources.

However, 2007 was by no means the end of the Stream project. We continue to
be busy in these early weeks of 2008. Already by mid January we are pleased
to provide support for several new languages. Version 1.1.15 of the Stream
is now available for download in Dutch, French, German, and Swedish. These
versions have both the Victor messages and Vocalizer text-to-speech
localized to those languages. We will soon add Danish, Norwegian and
Spanish.

We are aware of the interest in the U.S. for a male Vocalizer voice. This
voice named Tom, has been delivered from Nuance and will be made available
as an alternate version 1.1.15 download as soon as Nuance makes some
adjustments we have requested. That work is in progress now. Also, on order
from Nuance is a male voice for U.K. English named Daniel. In the next few
days we will put samples of these Vocalizer voices and languages on the
Stream page. We will announce that on the News Wire.

Also for our U.S. customers we are pleased to advise that RFB&D has
concluded their preparations to provide the UAK (User Authorization Key)
required to play their AudioPlus books on the Stream. We are preparing
information and instructions on the UAK process and will post it to the News
Wire in the next day or two.

We are very excited that the next release version 1.2 of the Stream software
is ready to enter our quality assurance review which is the last stage
before a software release expected in early February. This will be another
free upgrade to our customers. Full details will be provided on this News
Wire once the Q/A process is finished but as a sneak preview here are some
of the version 1.2 features you can look forward to:
– support for NIMAS text books which is great news for our students who use
the Stream in the classroom
– a Stream built-in SD card format utility
– increased loudness of the Stream's built-in speaker
– significantly faster data transfer when the Stream is connected to the
computer with the USB cable
– more control of the audio for music which will make listening to music
even more fun
– a Go To Time feature to move to specific locations in unstructured audio
books such as podcasts or recorded lectures/meetings

All of that and more is expected in version 1.2 in early February.

Already we have some popular requests to enhance the Stream Companion
software just released December 21. We will continue to work on extensions
to the Stream Companion and will announce those when available.

There is much to say about the Stream but you, the customer, are the most
important factor in its success. HumanWare appreciates your support of the
Stream. The excitement about the Stream and its use for school, work, and
leisure continues to grow. Stay tuned for future news on this exciting
technology.

Best wishes,
Gerry Chevalier
Victor Reader Product Manager