All Deals

Some assistive technology companies are also offering holiday weekend deals. Starting Friday, Serotek offers a $200 discount of orders of $399 or more. Use it to purchase System Access 3.0, System Access Mobile Network subscriptions, Neospeech, Document Scan, or the
MSI Wind Netbook computer with System Access pre-installed.
Follow the link on this post to go to their site, or call 866-202-0520. System Access 3.0 is the first mainstream screen reading product to offer support for newer 64-bit operating systems, sold on many newer desktops and laptops. Deal ends December 1.

An EBay seller and Blind Bargains reader has posted a working Pac Mate QX400 personal digital assistant with a starting bid of $100. Plus, shipping is free. This unit includes a QWERTY keyboard and is running the latest version of software available for this edition, version 4.1. It is also upgradable to a Pac Mate Omni for $695. Two 2GB memory cards are also included. Auction ends November 25.

JAWS 10, the latest screen reading version from Freedom Scientific, was released last week. We've linked to the list of new features for all the dirty details. The most talked-about feature, perhaps, is called Tandom and allows for remote training and support opportunities.

Ending today, an EBay seller has listed a Deluxe Braille Scrabble Game with a current bid of $28.99. Plus, add about $10 for shipping. These are truly hard to find. This is the older edition with a felt back for rotating the board, a complete set of 100 braille tiles, scoring pins, and more. They don't make 'em like this anymore. Auction ends later today.

An EBay seller has listed an I.D. Mate II portable bar code reader with an opening bid of one cent. Add about $12 for shipping. These retailed for over $1,200 when first released. This omnidirectional scanner can recognize more than a million items and also allows you to add your own personal descriptions. The item is being sold as working. Auction ends November 2.

An EBay seller has relisted a like-new KNFB Reader Classic, now for a starting bid of $1,100. This is the PDA model and comes with everything necessary to start reading printed material. By comparison, the KNFB Reader Mobile retails for roughly $2,200. Auction ends November 5.

An EBay seller has listed a used TSI Optacon, model R1D, with a BuyItNow price of $399.95 with about $20 for shipping. or, make an offer. The Optacon is still one of the most sought-after reading devices available, allowing the blind to feel raised print. The unit is being sold as is, and comes with rechargeable batteries.

Seedlings Braille Books for Children offers free articles from the World Book Encyclopedia in braille. They're available for students in grades 1-12, and will be shipped within five business days around the world. We've linked to the form you can use to request articles.

As a follow-up to our previous post, here's a list of the 42 changes and improvements for Sendero GPS version 5. The new version was released Monday.

The Sendero Group has released version 5 of its groundbreaking GPS software for the BrailleNote family of PDAs. This version includes expanded points of interest data with more than 3 gigabytes of new data for the United States alone. Among the most interesting new features is the ability to find a business in a particular direction from you. This would make it possible to find upcoming restaurants on a highway, for example. Borrowing from many of the mainstream GPS programs, a speed alert feature can tell you if you are going too fast on the highway. Enhancements to the replay capability, and simpler route creation are also included. The upgrade costs one SMA count or $149 and is available now.

An EBay seller has listed a like-new KNFB Reader Classic for a starting bid of $1,200. This is the PDA model and comes with everything necessary to start reading printed material. By comparison, the KNFB Reader Mobile retails for roughly $2,200. Auction ends October 25.

With proof of visual impairment, Braille Bibles International offers what appears to be the solar-powered talking bible for a $20 donation. That's $70 less than the price of this bible through online retailers. There is a limit of one bible per person. These are audio King James bibles and are powered by sunlight or incandescent light. An MP3 audio bible is also available on two CDs for $10, or an audio bible on 60 CDs for $20.

An EBay seller has listed a working DecTalk USB speech synthesizer for an opening bid of $399.99. Or, BuyItNow for $499.99. This modern synthesizer is supported by popular screen readers and is perfect for mobile users. Auction ends October 1 if not sold sooner.

After a bit of a break over the summer, we've returned to bring you the deals, news, and resources you've come to expect. Watch for new features, improvements, and much more in the coming year. Welcome back to another exciting year of Blind Bargains.

Just in time for the start of the fall semester, Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic has introduced a feature known as AudioAccess. It offers downloadable versions of it's wide selection of book titles, primarily textbooks for students of all ages. The service is free to members.

Another free screen reading option has recently been introduced, which offers speech access from virtually any computer, regardless of the operating system. WebAnywhere is the latest entrant in the field of web-based access products, and offers access to websites using a centralized program. The software was developed at the University of Washington and is currently available in English, though other languages are planned. Programmers may be interested to know that the source code of this project has been released, making this what we believe to be the first web-based screen reading product with publicly available source code. We'll be watching this one as it develops over the coming months.

An new update has been released for the LevelStar Icon and BraillePlus PDA's. Among other features, vesion 1.11 adds support for the Audible book format so users can download and listen to books from Audible.com. Also, a new feature called the workspace has been added, which allows for users to view recent RSS feeds, files, or a welcome screen. Some bugs with some National Library Service books were also fixed.

GW Micro has released the hugely anticipated free public beta of Window-Eyes 7.0. The big news for this release is the robust support for scripting, as demonstrated by the dozens of scripts already available on their Script Central site. These include highly-advanced scripts for the Winamp media player, a handy script which speaks chat history and other info in Skype, and many scripts for performing tasks from converting units of measure to looking up dictionary terms. Not to be overlooked, this version also includes improved support for international languages, a website place marker feature, better support for Firefox 3, and new commands to navigate through web pages.

AccessibleWorld.org will be featuring a presentation on the new features in the Victor Reader Stream 2.0. The interactive chat will be held on Monday at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific in the tech talk room, which we've linked to on this post. We don't have any concrete details on new features as of yet, but Windows Media and braille support have been ideas talked about in the past. If you have any insight, you can send us a note. You can send us a tip anonymously if you wish for this or any other breaking news story.

Thanks to reader Nancy, we've fixed some of our pages when browsing through past deals. Formerly, you couldn't browse through more than one page of old deals. The links at the bottom of the page now work, however, so you can browse through deals back to our beginning in 2006.