Today, Apple announce a new iTunes U App for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. To download the free app click here. The app allows students view classes, slide shows, documents and more from their classes. iTunes U also allows teachers to post assignments, video or audio of classes, slide shows, documents and more for uses by their students. iTunes U allows users to participate in classes from top university and organizations regardless of if the users attends the school. iTunes U can now be used by K-12 schools as well as universities. All classes are free to the public on iTunes U. iTunes U allows students to view and check off assignments, take notes and review missed classes. Apple describes the app as,

"Whether you’re taking a European history course in your spare time, learning Spanish in high school, or majoring in molecular biology at a university, you now have a powerful tool to help you get the most out of your classes. The new iTunes U app expands the classroom experience by putting all the materials for a course — audio and video, new iBooks Textbooks for iPad and other books, a syllabus and class assignments, posts from the instructor, PDFs, presentations, and more — just a tap away on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch."

Apple also says how iTunes you keeps you current, 

"When you take an iTunes U course, you’ll always have the most current information at your fingertips. With a tap, you can listen again to the most recent lecture or review the latest presentation to make sure you got all the details. Stay on top of your assignments and check them off as you complete them. And when an instructor sends a message or creates a new assignment, you’ll receive a push notification with the new information."

Click read more below to view additional pictures of the new iTunes U app.

 

» Read More...

Today, Apple announced iBooks 2 with textbook support. The textbooks will be interactive and can include videos, Keynote presentations, 3D diagrams and more. Apple says that digital textbook on the iPad have many advantages of paper textbooks including ease of carrying to and from class, ability to update books and improve note taking. To download iBooks 2 click here. Textbooks will cost no more than $14.99. The textbooks will only be compatible with the iPad and will not work on iPhone or iPod Touch. The text books will be compatible with accessiblity features built into iOS 5. Click here to learn more about iOS 5 Accessiblity. Apple says,

"A Multi-Touch textbook on iPad is a gorgeous, full-screen experience full of interactive diagrams, photos, and videos. No longer limited to static pictures to illustrate the text, now students can dive into an image with interactive captions, rotate a 3D object, or have the answer spring to life in a chapter review. They can flip through a book by simply sliding a finger along the bottom of the screen. Highlighting text, taking notes, searching for content, and finding definitions in the glossary are just as easy. And with all their books on a single iPad, students will have no problem carrying them wherever they go."

The new textbooks will be easy to annotate. Students can easily highlight passages and add notes. A cool feature called study cards will make flash cards from your notes and highlights for easy studying. Apple says the following about study cards,

"All your notes and highlights automatically appear on study cards. Flip them over and find the definition of a glossary term or the note attached to the highlighted passage. Choose which highlight colors to review, and include chapter vocabulary from the glossary — automatically. To make sure you really know your stuff, you can shuffle your cards to study."

Apple will be partnering with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill and Pearson at the beginning. Apple also announced iBook Author which allows individuals to create textbooks for the iPad. Click read more below to view more images of iBooks 2 Textbooks.

"Use a finger as a highlighter when reading any textbook in iBooks. Just swipe over text and it’s highlighted. Tap a highlighted section and a palette appears. Change colors, switch to underlining, or add a note instantly. Then switch to the Notes view to see all your notes and highlights organized in one place, making it a cinch to search or go back to the highlighted sections of the book." - Apple.com

» Read More...

The iConvert Scanner is a hardware scanner for the iPad. To use the scanner you must download the iCovert Scanner app which is free. The iConver Scanner can scan documents from 2.5 inches to 8.5 inches in width. The documents are saved as JPEG images in your iPad's photo library. The scanner does not save documents as PDFs.

"Our iConvert® Scanner for iPad and iPad 2 Tablets scans hard copies to JPEG files directly to your tablet, giving you instant e-copies of your most important documents. The JPEG files are automatically stored in the picture folder. Great for use at home (old photos, genealogy records, special greeting cards, recipes and children’s artwork), at the office (meeting notes, resumes, renderings, signed contracts) and on the go (receipts, expense reports, business cards and more). The entire scanner is sized to take with you in your messenger bag or backpack. 

Better than basic alternatives, the iConvert® Scanner for iPad and iPad 2 Tablets scans in high-resolution 300dpi for clear, crisp JPEG images. And the front feeder adjusts from 2 inches to 8½ inches wide to fit many size photos and important documents. Easy to use and it works with the free downloadable app at the iTunes® App StoreSM. Simply place the tablet on the scanner and the scanner gives step-by-step prompts from 'scan' (with real-time preview) to “save” or 'delete.'" -Brookstones.com

The iConvert Scanner retails for $149.99 from Brookstones. To visit Brookstones website click here. Click read more below to view pictures of the iConvert Scanner.

» Read More...

Below is a promo code for Prizmo. To learn more about Prizmo click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Prizmo. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. This is the last Prizmo giveaway. Good Luck!

46RAW4NLHNER

» Read More...

Below is a promo code for Prizmo. To learn more about Prizmo click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Prizmo. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Check back often to improve you chances of winning. The next promo code will be posted within the next day. Good Luck!

9REHKHPKKNHN

» Read More...

Below is a promo code for Prizmo. To learn more about Prizmo click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Prizmo. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Check back often to improve you chances of winning. The next promo code will be posted within the next day. Good Luck!

E9M7NF37L3N9

» Read More...

Below is a promo code for Prizmo. To learn more about Prizmo click here. To win the app enter the code into iTunes. The first person to enter the code will win the Prizmo. Once one person enters the code it will no longer work. If you do not win check back later for another code. Check back often to improve you chances of winning. The next promo code will be posted within the next day. Good Luck!

6M6P7N3F9R9X

» Read More...

Color ID is a simple free app that recognizes colors using the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch's camera. Point the camera at the object you want to know the color of to use the app. Turn on VoiceOver to hear the color of the object be said allowed. Click here to download Color ID. Color ID is ideal for people who are blind or color blind and need to identify the color of clothing or any other object.

» Read More...

The Assistive Technology Blog will be giving away free copies of Prizmo over the next several days. Click here to learn more about Prizmo. Prizmo is the best optical character recognition (OCR) app for the iPhone that I have used. Prizmo costs $9.99 in the App Store. To win check the Assistive Technology Blog often over the next few days. Every day one promo code will be posted. The first reader to enter the promo code into iTunes will win the app. The more often you check the blog the more likely you are to win. If you do not in at first check back the next day for another giveaway.

» Read More...

Printer Pro for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad allows you to print to most printers from your iOS devices. Click here for the iPad app and here for the iPhone and iPod Touch app. Printer Pro is not a universal app so you will need to buy the app separately for your iPhone and iPad in order to have the best experience. Printer Pro allows you to print to most Wi-Fi printer and any printer attached to your computer by downloading a desktop app. To test to make sure your printer is compatible you can download Printer Pro Lite by clicking here. Setting up is relatively quick and easy. Once you set up your printer the app will remember your printer and you will not need to set it up each time. Printer Pro allows you to print email attachments, files from Dropbox, Web pages, Photos and Contacts. Click read more below to see screen shots of Printer Pro.

This app was provided complimentary to the reviewer.

» Read More...

Today, Apple sent out invitations to the media for an education focused media event to be held on Thursday, January 19 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The invitation reads, "Join us for an education announcement in the Big Apple." Rumors have suggested that the announcement will focus on iBooks, iTunes U and digital textbooks. We will find out for sure next week. Check back here as the event approaches to find out what Apple has in store for education and what it means for assistive technology.

» Read More...

JotNot Pro for iPhone can be used as a portable scanner. JotNot uses the iPhone's camera to take a picture of a document and then processes the image to the center of the screen. It  then removes shadows and noise. To make a PDF of a document simply take a picture of each page of the document with JotNot. JotNot will make a PDF that looks like it was made with a flatbed scanner. Once JotNot has produced a PDF you can email it or save it to a number of cloud services including Google Docs. To learn more about JotNot Pro click here. You can also use JotNot with Kurzweil. Simply email your self the PDF and then open it with Kurzweil. Once the PDF is opened in Kurzweil you can read it using Kurzweil's built in text-to-speech or use any of the Kurzweil editing tools to fill in the blanks, circle or highlight the document. JotNot is the perfect companion to Kurzweil. When you get a hard copy of a document you would like to read with Kurzweil simply take a picture of it with JotNot instead of going to a scanner. Click read more below to see JotNot screen shots and watch more videos.

» Read More...

Prizmo is the best optical character recognition (OCR) app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that I have used. Because of  iPhone's superior camera you will have the best results while using Prizmo on the iPhone. Prizmo allows you to take a picture of text, business cards and more and then process them into useful electronic documents. When taking a picture of a business card, Prizmo makes a contact that you can quickly add to your contact list. Prizmo really shines when recognizing text. Simply take a picture then crop it to only include the text that you want to have read and then click "next" to begin the OCR. Prizmo has a very nice feature that allows you to say "take picture" to snap a picture of the document to eliminate shaking as you go to press the shutter button. Prizmo will quickly recognize the text and put it into a text document. Then you can edit any mistakes that Prizmo may have made. One of the only down sides of Prizmo is that it does not allow you to OCR multiple pages into the same text document.

After the text has been recognized you can read the text with a built in reader, VoiceOver or Speak Selection. You can also translate, email or save it to a number of cloud services including Dropbox and Evernote. In order to use the built in reader you must buy a text-to-speech voice for an additional $2.99. The reader allows you to control play back speed, but does not highlight the words as they are being read allowed. It does place a white dot next to the line that is currently being read. Prizmo is great for saving documents in an electronic format or for people who struggle to read and are helped by having text read aloud. Prizmo works faster and more accurately than ZoomReader, TextGrabber and SayText. Prizmo is $9.99 in the iTunes app store. Click here to download or view Prizmo in the App Store. Click read more below to see screen shots and more videos of Prizmo.

Picture of Newspaper Article taken with iPhone 4S

Text Extracted From Image 

Economic Slide Took A Detour at Capitol Hill From Page A1 group.

congress has never been a place for paupers. From plantation owners in the pre-Civil War era to industrialists in the early 1900s to ex-Wall Street financiers and Internet executives today, it has long been populated with the rich, including scions of families like the Guggenheims, Hearsts, Kennedys and Rockefellers.

But rarely has the divide appeared so wide, or the public contrast so stark, between lawmakers and those they represent.

The wealth gap may go largely unnoticed in good times. "But with the American public feeling all this economic pain, people just resent it more," said Alan J. Ziobrowski, a professor at Georgia State who studied lawmakers' stock investments.

There is broad debate about just why the wealth gap appears to be growing. For starters, the prohibitive costs of political campaigning may discourage the less affluent from even considering a candidacy. Beyond that, loose ethics controls, shrewd stock picks, profitable land deals, favorable tax laws, inheritances and even marriages to wealthy spouses are all cited as possible explanations for the rising fortunes on Capitol Hill.

What is clear is that members of Congress are getting richer compared not only with the average American worker, but also with other very rich Americans.

While the median net worth of members of Congress jumped 15 percent from 2004 to 2010, the net worth of the richest 10 percent of Americans remained essentially flat. For all Americans, median net worth dropped 8 percent, based on inflation-adjusted data from Moody's Analytics.

Going back further, the median wealth of House members grew some two and a half times between 1984 and 2009 in inflation.

adjusted dollars, while the wealth of the average American family has actually declined slightly ha that same time period, according Emmar/e Huetteman and Derek Willis t'ontrihutPd rvrmrtino to data cited by The Washington Post in an article published Monday on its Web site.

With millionaire status now the norm, the rarefied air in the Capitol these days is $100 million.

That lofty level appears to have been surpassed by at least 10 members, led by Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and former auto alarm magnate who is worth somewhere between $195 million and $700 million. (Because federal law requires lawmakers to disclose their assets only in broad dollar nranges, more precise estimates are impossible.)

Their wealth has created occasional political problems for Congress's richest.

Mr. Issa, for instance, has faced outside scrutiny because of the overlap of his Congressional work and outside interests, including extensive investments with Wall Street firms like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs, as well as land holdings in his San Diego district. In one case, he obtained some $800,000 in federal earmarks for a road-widening project running along his commercial property.

Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat who is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, set off an uproar last year when it was disclosed that he had docked his $7 million, 76-foot yacht not in his home state but in neighboring Rhode Island, which has no sales or use tax on pleasure boats. (Mr.

Kerry, worth at least $181 million, voluntarily paid $400,000 in Massachusetts taxes after criticism.) Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, was challenged about her wealth, as much as $196 million, by a member of her own party a few weeks ago. Representative Laura Richardson, a California Democrat who is among the poorest members of Congress with as much as $464,000 in debt, attacked Ms. Pelosi at a closeddoor Democratic caucus meeting for endorsing a Congressional pay freeze, according to a report in Politico that was confirmed by other members.

Ms. Richardson angrily told 'lkd[o If'~^l^~: .L _~

Article from New York Times for demonstration purposes

Prizmo was provided complimentary to the reviewer.

» Read More...

Proloquo2Go is the most full featured augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) app for iOS. The app can help people who have trouble communicating communicate by touching words or phrases that they want to have spoken aloud. To learn more about Proloquo2Go visit their website at Proloquo2Go.com. Proloquo2Go has an extremely visual interface that makes finding what you are looking for easy. The home screen of Proloquo2Go has a grid with folders; each folder has an image and title on it. The user touches a folder to enter that category. For example if you wanted to say "yes" you would click on the yes, no, maybe folder and the touch the yes button. Once you touch the yes button a computerized voice would say "yes." Many folders have numerous sub folders which can make it time consuming to find the word or phrase you would like to say. Luckily, you can make quick sets of words and phrases you use often for quicker access. In addition you can make custom commands such as family member's names or home address. Proloquo2Go also allows users to input the word  they want via a keyboard. The keyboard has advanced word prediction that allows users to insert words faster. When using the keyboard you can type out phrases that Proloquo2Go will say allowed when you are finished typing. Proloqu2Go allow features several high quality text-to-speech voices. Proloquo2Go is a feature filled AAC app that can allow people to communicate. Because of the abundance of features Proloquo2Go can be slightly complex to use at the beginning. To try Proloquo2Go you can stop by your local Apple Store and find the app installed on all of the display iPads. Proloquo2Go is $189.99 in the App Store and works with iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Proloquo2Go can replace much more expensive AAC devices and using Apple devices can make users feel less self-conscious than using a dedicated AAC device that is different from anything peers or same age students would use. To watch Proloquo2Go featured on 60 minutes click here. To learn more about Proloquo2Go click read more below.

Key features

from Proloquo2Go.com

• Full communication solution with a default VocaSpace vocabulary of over 7000 items
• Choice of list or grid view
• Built-in natural sounding text-to-speech voices from Acapela Group (one language, initially only British and American English). The current version includes North American English male, female, girl and boy voices. These can be swapped for British English voices, which can be downloaded over Wifi from within Proloquo2Go. Support for other languages and voices is in the pipeline.
• Supports picture and/or text-based communication
• Close to 8000 built-in symbols from SymbolStix LLC.
• Automatic conjugation of verbs
• Automatic plurals and possessives for nouns
• Extensive customization options: item size, color, interactivity, restrictions, speech.
• One-button addition of new vocabulary items and categories
• Easy cut, copy and paste of items
• Quick access to recently spoken items for the last 15 minutes, last hour, all the way up to one week back
• Typing view with advanced, self-learning multi-word prediction for typing full paragraphs

This App was provided complementary to the review by AssistiveWare  

» Read More...