To all, Hi! I've been asked to share this News letter with others, I hope nobody will mind having brought it onto this list. It has our interest in mind which I've found their support and customer service very helpful and friendly. I bought a product from them, a Sony compact four track cassette player with every feature needed. They are in the US which does mean if you're outside the country certain products cannot be bought but this can be overcome by buying it through another friend residing there which I had done. I'm very happy with the cassette player, its the best thing I bought. This News snip tells you more about the company and some of the products they have in stock. There is a web site that gives a catalogue on all the adaptive products they have and they can modify virtually anything to suit your requirements To finish off Thanks to all those here on the list and especially those who helped with the fax software and the selecting, copying and pasting of file names into a document in addition for your support and advice Many thanks! Russell, IRTI NewsClips The Newsletter of Innovative Rehabilitation Technology Inc. December 2002 Volume 1, number 2 Greetings, IRTI Friends, Thank you for all the kind comments on our first issue of this newsletter. We are pleased so many of you enjoyed both the inside look at IRTI as well as the highlights of products. As one reader lamented, "So many toys, so little cash! " Some of you have a long history with IRTI and you know the story. However, others of you may not know how the company shifted from Vito Proscia in Mountain View, in the San Francisco bay area, to Peter Proscia in Grass Valley, located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada of Northern California. During the 1980s, Vito pioneered the concept of modifying standard cassette players into the 4-track format. Peter, one of his five children, became involved due to his electronics engineering skills. The result has been seventeen years of Peter's involvement and a very successful product line. Meanwhile, Peter also worked with other bay area companies involved in the industry serving the blind. Eventually, Peter and his wife, Phyllis, chose to be bay area refugees and moved to the Mother Lode gold country. Here they worked for local Grass Valley high tech companies and started their own. Five years ago Vito decided that retirement should become a more dominant part of his life. This began the transition of turning over the company to Peter and Phyllis in Grass Valley. They already had a facility and staff. Now IRTI is their sole enterprise. Vito continues to play a very important advisory role, as well as hearing his voice on the TIB audio magazine. Some of you already know us on a first name basis. But for the rest of you a brief introduction to the IRTI staff would be in order. Peter wears a number of hats including CEO and lead engineer. Phyllis is the company administrator and financial officer. Tony is our computer specialist and Gary is the lead repair technician. Sue and Jeff handle the bulk of the sales and customer service. Carol handles all incoming and outgoing shipping as well as tracking anything sent in for repair. Lastly, Terry oversees the busy production crew. * Announcing eClipseReader! from IRTI Since IRTI has had such a long history with talking book cassette machines it was natural for us to look ahead to the emerging digital talking book format. The Daisy format offers many advantages over books on audio tape. IRTI has developed an affordable Windows program called eClipseReader. eClipseReader is the most advanced daisy book reader available. It takes advantage of Daisy's ability to synchronize text and recordings of actual human speech on a CD. This enables readers to listen to talking books with the added benefit of quickly navigating around a book by chapter, page, heading or phrase. Along with easy book navigation, eClipseReader incorporates study tools to enable students and other readers to make notes that are linked to a specific location in the book as well as create multiple bookmarks that can be labeled, saved and later reviewed. You can even be listening to and navigating a book and also work in another program like MS Word. eClipseReader has a unique dual user interface customizable for either blind users preferring a key board interface or a simple graphic interface for sighted users and those with dyslexia. To learn more and to stay up to date on the release schedule, please visit our eClipseReader website: www.eclipsereader.com * From Our Product Line. Several months ago a customer of ours inquired about a high-end portable CD recorder. As a professional musician he wanted flexibility with inputs and mixing. As a result, we now carry the Superscope Marantz PSD300. This unit has two CD drives. One drive is for playback and has special features such as key and tempo change and points A-B repeat. The other CD drive records CD-R/RW discs with input from the other drive, built-in or external microphones, direct instrument input or Line In for input from other analog or digital equipment. Although it is not specifically designed for use without sight, using the remote control and the very detailed instructions we have developed make this model quite useable. Please note though that this PSD300 is not for the technologically timid. We can email you a features list highlighting what is accessible and what is not. The Superscope PSD300 is priced at $950.00. Sony Wireless Headphones These high quality stereo headphones use 900 MHz radio frequency transmission for clear reception up to 150 feet. The headphones are lightweight and rechargeable on their own stand. The rechargeable battery provides about 20 hours of use. The headphones are lightweight, adjustable and comfortable for extended wear. Volume control is built right into the headphones. Easily connect the transmitter to an audio system, TV, DVD or VCR with the included 3-foot cord and adapter. The transmitter comes with its own AC adapter. The Sony MDR-RF915RK is regularly $89.95 but now is priced at $79.95 until December 24. * From Our Work Bench. New Portable 4-Track Cassette Player with voice activation! Students regularly ask us for a portable 4-track player that provides better recording for lectures and meetings with a voice-activated recording feature. We have just completed a 4-track modification on a very nice unit from Sony. The TTR-400 records 2 tracks at either standard or talking book speed. It has a built-in flat floating microphone which picks up less motor noise and more of the sound you want to record. The voice operated recording feature is very effective with high or low sensitivity levels and an off setting. Sony's VOR is very good at minimizing the clipping off of the first syllable upon VOR start up. The TTR-400 also has a tape counter for those who can make use of it. Plus, there are all the usual 4-track playback features: dual speed, variable speed playback, cue and review and pause. The TTR-400 has a built-in speaker and includes headphones and cassette instructions for $139.95. * End-of-Year Specials. We are continuing the special pricing on the products from the November NewsClips through December 24. Here they are again. Sony Sports CD Walkman with radio and TV tuner, $129.00 includes cassette instructions. Sony MZ-B100 business minidisk recorder, $369.95 includes cassette instructions (regularly $389.95). Perfect Data 52 digital voice recorder with helpful voice prompts, $84.95 (regularly $99.95). Sony ICD-B25 digital voice recorder with cassette instructions, $99.95. VoiceMate personal organizer with voice recognition, $199.95 (regularly $229.95). Seiko mantle clocks, several different chime and musical styles. Very elegant and less than half price. Call for descriptions and pricing. Please contact us Monday through Friday, 8:00 to 5:00 (Pacific Time), with any questions you may have on these or other products. Please note: All sale prices are in effect until December 24, 2002 and subject to available stock on hand. We will remain open until mid-day on Tuesday, December 24. IRTI will be closed thereafter for the holidays and we will reopen on January 2, 2003. Feel free to forward this newsletter on to friends and others who might find the information useful. Your continued subscription to this email newsletter is completely voluntary. If you wish to unsubscribe just send an email to [log in to unmask] with "NewsClips unsubscribe" in the subject and include your email address in the message body. Anyone wishing to subscribe to the list for IRTI NewsClips may email us at [log in to unmask] and place "NewsClips subscribe" in the subject. Always feel free to call us with questions or orders: Phone: (530) 274-2090 Order line: (800) 322-4784 Email: [log in to unmask] website: www.irti.net and www.eclipsereader.com Enjoy the holidays! Cordially, The IRTI Team VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List. To join or leave the list, send a message to [log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type "subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations. VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html