We’re excited to announce that the first free update in the ZoomText 10 cycle is here!  ZoomText 10 is now available electronically in the following languages:  Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Slovak, Spanish and Swedish.

In addition, we have optimized the ZoomText Camera feature to provide faster video performance on systems equipped with a multi-core processor. Controls have also been added in the ZoomText Camera dialog providing manual selection of the camera video frame rate, allowing you to balance overall camera and system performance. 

And that’s not all - we’ve made further improvements for our iTunes and Java Access Bridge support plus a whole bunch of bug fixes. 

Read more about 10, read the release notes, or download a free 60-day trial to give it a try yourself.

Read a profile on the St. Louis Lighthouse for the Blind - a nonprofit organization that aims to provide light manufacturing and assembly jobs for adults who are blind or legally blind.  Jennifer Perez, pictured to the right, works in the customer service department with the help of ZoomText!

Read all about it!

As you probably know by now, we released our feature-packed new upgrade a couple weeks ago - ZoomText 10!

We’re now shipping physical boxes or offering a serial number only to save on shipping (both are just English only).  For those of you who have an Enhanced Support Plan, you should expect your box at your door in the next few weeks.

Haven’t tried it out for yourself yet?  No better time than the present to download the free 60-day trial.  Or you can watch the videos we’ve created that showcase all the new features.

Order your copy today!  Low cost upgrades are available to anyone who already owns ZoomText.  Give us a call for more info:  800-859-0270.

It’s rare for me to be done with my holiday shopping so early in the month.  Pretty sure that some of you reading this are jealous because you are struggling to find a gift for that hard-to-shop-for person on your list.

Ai Squared gift certificates to the rescue! What better gift to give than letting them pick out something from our growing list of products.  It’s good for absolutely anything we sell and it never expires.

Give us a call at 800-859-0270 to order yours today.  You can purchase one in any amount you’d like and we’ll send you an e-certificate and also mail one to you so you’ll be sure to have something ready at gift giving time.

Happy holidays from the Ai Squared family to yours!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Large-Print Keyboard survey from the last ZoomNews issue.  Congratulations to Matthew Robinson whose name was chosen in the raffle - he won a $100 Amazon.com gift certificate!

Here’s a short recap of the results:

• 46% of the participants already own a ZoomText Large-Print Keyboard and most of you that do, own the black-on-yellow version.
• The top two requested features for a future keyboard are to offer a wireless version followed by selling one that’s backlit.
• As for future color schemes, the most popular was black-on-white.

If you’d like to see the complete details, you can download a PDF document that contains the graphical results, or you can view it as an Excel spreadsheet - there are a bunch of sheets down at the bottom to look through.

Do you own one of our ZoomText Large-Print Keyboards and recently upgraded to ZoomText 10?  Depending on what version of the keyboard you have, you will either have to download a software update or you may have to purchase a new keyboard.

If your keyboard has circular buttons at the top that are labeled with icons, you just need to download a free software update and you’ll be up and running.  You can find that here:  http://bit.ly/w4n7ym.  If you are unable to download the update, you can call us (800-859-0270) and we’ll mail you out a CD.

A long time ago, our keyboard was styled differently and actually had words across the top with oblong buttons instead of circles.  If you own this old version, it is unfortunately not compatible with ZoomText 10.  However, we’ll sell you a new one for the discounted rate of $50 (normally they are $99).  Give us a call if you’d like to order - 800-859-0270.

A while back, support technician Lloyd talked to a ZoomText customer who owns and runs a really cool business, the Low Vision Chef.  We thought it was the perfect thing to share with the rest of our customers!

Here’s a little information about this company from their site:

“Our goal is to make your cooking easier, which will promote independent living and a healthy lifestyle.  Low Vision Chef put
together a line of kitchenware in bold colors with tactile cues.  We sell these utensils here to help you adapt in the kitchen with your loss of vision.

To keep yourself cooking, use bright color, lighting, offset color, unique and broad head tools, along with our color combinations which act as a vision aid to the visually impaired cook.

This site was designed after watching my wife, a career chef, work through learning to cook with low vision over the past 9 years.

You should not let the vision impairment be a white flag in the kitchen, your family still needs fresh healthy food to eat.”

Stop by their site to get those last minute holiday gifts for the foodie on your list!

ZoomText users Kathy Kalaluhi and Jim McRoy sent in a bunch of websites that they 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 were their suggestions and if you’d like to submit any websites for the next issue, please email them to Becca at rwhite@aisquared.com!

Check out all the sites they recommend!

The Lake of the Woods Lions club recently awarded seven grants, including donating ZoomText Magnifier to enrich instruction to visually impaired students in Natalie McMahan’s Prospect Heights Middle School classroom.

Read all about it!

The latest newsletter has a contest to win an Amazon.com gift certificate, info about the release of ZoomText 10, results from the Large-Print Keyboard survey, a highlight on Low Vision Chef, and much more!

Read the December 2011 issue.