A Review of the Accessibility of Digital Audio Players

Let's face it... digital audio players have come a long way in recent years. In light of this, AFB's blog has a great post titled, "Now Playing: A Review of the Accessibility of Digital Audio Players, Part 2: Assistive Technology Players"

Check it out at http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw090504

Taken from the article:

This article examines the BookCourier, the Victor Reader Stream, the Milestone 311/312, and the players from Plextor. The Book Port is not included, since the American Printing House for the Blind (APH) has discontinued it. This article also discusses the media players that are included in several assistive technology PDA (personal digital assistant) devices, including the PAC Mate, BrailleNote/VoiceNote, Braille Sense/Voice Sense, and Braille+/Icon, as well as accessing digital media on cell phones using the third-party screen-reader software products TALKS, Mobile Speak, and Smart Hal...

After working on this project for several months, we concluded that the assistive technology industry is paying serious attention to accessing books and music. In the category of handheld players, the Victor Reader Stream is now the leading product. AFB TECH testers generally preferred the Stream because of its slightly-easier-to-use interface and because it plays NLS books.

Note from Talking Books Librarian: In case you've never seen the Victor Reader Stream before, you can find out more about it here (it's my personal favorite!):