Back to School Sale!
 It's almost September, and you know what that means...it's almost back-to-school time! I'm not going to lie, I certainly don't miss the days of homework and with both parents as teachers, you can only imagine!
To ring in the new school year, we're offering 20% off any ZoomText purchase until September 1st! This includes new copies, upgrades, our ZoomText Enhanced Support Plan, and the ZoomText Large-Print Keyboard. Just give us a call or shop online using the code SCHOOL2011 to get your discount.
**End users only, dealers are not eligible**
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ZoomContacts is Here
 We are excited to announce the release of ZoomContacts- an app for the iPad & iPad 2! ZoomContacts is the perfect "Large Print" contact application for iPad users who have difficulty seeing the small text on their screen. ZoomContacts uses Apple's internal Contacts database to store and manage information but presents it using multiple font size and color combination choices. This makes it easier on the eyes for anyone who could use some visual assistance.
ZoomContacts is available now in the iTunes App Store for $4.99.
Want to see the app in action? Go onto YouTube and check out the video we made.
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Tablet Survey Results
 Thanks to everyone who participated in the tablet survey from the last ZoomNews issue. Congratulations to Gina Herrman whose name was chosen in the raffle - she won a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate!
The most popularly owned tablet device is the iPad and the device that most of you are planning to buy in the near future is the iPad 2. Good thing we've got an app for that!
If you'd like to see the complete details, you can download a PDF document that contains the graphical results. Read on for another chance to win!
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New Contest
This time around, we're conducting a survey about CCTVs and webcams. It won't take very long to complete and if you fill it out by September 15th, you'll be entered in the drawing to win a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate!
No better time than the present to fill out the survey! Good luck in the drawing :-)
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Upcoming Training Opportunities
 As always, we are running new user online training
sessions every week. These are free, but you do have to register for the session you'd like to attend.
Head on over to our training page to sign up today!
In addition, we have another free webinar coming up at the end of this month - this one goes into more depth than the new user
trainings do. It will be on August 30th from 11 AM to 12 PM EST and is called "Using ZoomText with Adobe Reader".
This is meant for beginner and intermediate ZoomText users and will concentrate on using ZoomText with Adobe Reader and PDF files. We will cover recommended settings and troubleshooting steps to help ZoomText read PDF files. Sign
up today!
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ZoomReader is a da Vinci Award Nominee!
 We're proud to announce that ZoomReader is a nominee in the Lifestyle category for the 2011 da Vinci Awards! What are the da Vinci Awards you say? Complete information can be found on their website, but here's a little blurb to give you the basics:
About the da Vinci Awards
In 2001, the Michigan Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society established the da Vinci Awards, an annual gala event, which has become a prestigious international forum of recognition for the most innovative developments and research in adaptive and assistive technology.
It is the only awards program in the world to both celebrate people who triumph over disabilities and to honor those who have developed new technologies and innovations that enhance mobility and enable people to function at their fullest. The 2011 da Vinci Awards will be presented at a gala event on September 22, 2011, at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Festivities include a cocktail reception, gourmet strolling dinner, entertainment, and spectacular awards program.
The awards were named after Leonardo da Vinci because of his documented talents as an inventor, philosopher, engineer, architect and artist. The name itself captures the spirit in which the awards are given.
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Highlight: Lime Lighter
 Bill McCann is the founder and president of Dancing Dots Braille Music Technology, the company that has been helping blind and low vision musicians make music since 1992. His company created the world's first commercial Braille music translator software, GOODFEEL and has pioneered in the area of creating what he calls "accessible scores". Dancing Dots markets an access solution for creating professional-sounding, multi-track audio productions. Their latest products enable low vision musicians to read and to write music in an accessible environment.
The Lime Lighter displays printed music notation using the traditional five-line staff. You can magnify the music up to 10 times the original size and can even edit the music and print it out. But, for most people with low vision, this technology will be of interest as a way of reading music comfortably. Use it in conjunction with the SharpEye software, which lets you scan printed music and it will convert it into various music file formats. To round out the experience, use Lime Aloud to create and print editions of your own musical ideas!
For more information, go to the Dancing Dots website or you can watch a video of Bill demoing the Lime Lighter at a recent conference.
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Cool Websites
 ZoomText user Kathy Kalaluhi sent
in a bunch of websites that she thought other ZoomText users would find interesting and
helpful. We liked the idea so much that it's become a regular "column" in ZoomNews! Below are her
suggestions and if you'd like to submit any websites for the next issue, please email them to Becca at rproskin@aisquared.com!
- Baseball Road Trip - This site is a free shareware for planning road trips to attend baseball games.
- Some other sites that provide you with tips on what you might expect in planning a road trip:
- Nero KwiKmedia - a free online storage site that allows you to store music, videos and pictures. You can purchase add-ons to this service so that you can burn your home videos to Blu-ray, DVD and move either pics or music to mobile devices. It is a one stop shop for storage rather than storing pics on one place and music on another etc.
And a new category of sorts: "Best fruits in the orchard" - the best Mac apps for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad!
- Vlingo - a voice command app that allows you to text, email, call, or surf the web by simply commanding it to do so. For instance, if you say text Mary and then "let's meet for drinks", it will bring up the contact and type the text. You can also just ask a question and Google will automatically generate a search.
- Splash Top - an iPad app that's a wireless remote to access your desktop so that you can create or edit docs or spreadsheets. It's also available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
- Trip It - an app for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. It stores all info for your business travel. Provides a GPS map of your trip, reservation information for air travel, info on airport seat assignments, etc. It also works with Trip It on the web.
Thanks to Kathy for these great suggestions!
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In the News
 Visually impaired teen touches people's lives one painting at a time - Jeffery Owen Hanson, is a philanthropic artist who has had his fair share of struggles - in 2005, he became visually impaired due to an optic nerve tumor, associated with a genetic condition called Neurofibromatosis. You can also check out his art for sale while you're at it.
Theatres open up to new audiences - Through technology and some more traditional techniques, the world of live theatre is opening up to some whole new audiences - the blind, visually impaired, and deaf communities.
New ATM rules aim to aid visually impaired - Banks, credit unions and independent ATM operators are hustling to meet a March 2012 deadline to make their machines - more than 400,000 nationally - accessible to people who are blind or have low vision.
VIDEO: Helping the blind cook dinner - Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind provides cooking classes to help the visually impaired cook. Here's a similar story about a program set up to boost the confidence of the visually impaired when they're in the kitchen.
Visually impaired artist's 'Fury' self-portrait takes second place in national competition - Stephanie Charles, who was born with severe myopia (nearsightedness), recently won second prize out of nearly 400 entries in the 20th annual National InSights Art Competition sponsored by the American Printing House for the Blind.
Local children experience get hands-on circus experience - Boys and girls who are Visually impaired as well as their families on Thursday were given a hands-on sensory tour of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus.
Marvel launches DAREDEVIL audiobook with visually impaired fans in mind - Marvel has just announced that its superhero Daredevil - aka the blind attorney Matt Murdock - is coming to fans in audio form; The Man Without Fear is now also The Man With an Audiobook.
Volunteers help people to hear all about it - Providing a vital service for the visually impaired, the Alnwick Lions' Talking Newspaper wants to make sure no one is missing out. The group, made up of volunteers, records stories from the Northumberland Gazette on to cassette and then sends them out to those who have signed up to make sure they get the chance to hear what is being written about.
A blind date to be kept in total darkness - You might have heard about restaurants where customers eat in the dark and are served by blind staff. The idea is to give people who take sight for granted an idea of what life is like without it. In Hong Kong, they have a concert in the dark.
Father watches 'hero' blind son begin skating trek to Toronto - Mark DeMontis, who is blind, left the Canadian Museum of Immigration in Halifax for Toronto, for an 1,800-kilometre journey he's making on skates.
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Tradeshow Schedule
 Summer will be gone before we know it but the rest of the year sure is packed with tradeshows! If you're planning on attending any of these shows, be sure to stop by and see what's new with
us.
Envision Conference
September 21st - September 24th, 2011
St. Louis, MO
Booth #2
New England
Library Association (NELA) Conference
October 2nd - October 4th, 2011
Burlington, VT
Booth #309
Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany (NABA) Low Vision Technology Fair
October 19th, 2011
Albany, NY
Northeastern Association of the Blind at Albany (NABA) Low Vision Technology Fair
October 20th, 2011
Kingston, NY
Assistive Technology Industry Association (ATIA) Chicago Conference
November 3rd - November 5th, 2011
Schaumburg, IL
Booth #418
National
Ergonomics Conference & Exposition (NECE)
November 29th - December 2nd, 2011
Las Vegas, NV
Booth #608
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