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In what has become an annual tradition, Santa Claus has partnered with some of his elves in Baltimore to send braille letters to blind children. Parents or teachers of children under 10 can visit the Santa Letters page to request a braille letter from Santa, which will be produced by National Federation of the Blind elves and mailed to the child. A print version of the letter will also be included. Letters are free, and requests must be received by December 18.

Vector Capital, a San Francisco based investment firm, has combined Freedom Scientific and Optelec to form what is believed to be the largest assistive technology company. The brands will continue to operate as independent units for the time being as the merger details are worked out. Formed in 1997, Vector Capital currently employs roughly 40 people and has amassed total assets of over 2 billion dollars and has invested in many well-known brands including Corel, WinZip, WatchGuard, and Register.com.
We are excited to bring together two of the industry s leading companies to create a global, diversified end-to-end technology provider to the low-vision and blind community, said Vector Capital's Andy Fishman.
Freedom Scientific was formed in 2000 as the result of another merger involving Blazie Engineering, Henter-Joyce, and Arkenstone. Here's a link to the official press release.

AI Squared has released ZoomText Fusion, a combination of its ZoomText Magnifier with the Window-Eyes screen reader. Fusion is especially designed for those with progressive vision loss, allowing them to transition seemlessly from a magnifier to a screen reader. It includes the magnification and highlighting features of ZoomText along with browse mode, braille support, and other Window-Eyes features. A free 60-day trial is available for all users, and the product runs on Windows 7 and above. ZoomText Fusion is available now for $999. You can read more on the AI Squared Frequently Asked Questions page. Listen to an interview from this year's ACB convention about Fusion with Shelly Brisbin.

Hims has released version 1.5 of the firmware for the Blaze ET Digital Multiplayer. With this update, the Blaze ET is the first digital book player to support braile displays via Bluetooth. Users can connect most Hims braille displays to the Blaze ET to read books or control other functions of the device. Improvements to the web radio and OCR features are also included. It's a free update for all current users. Here's more information from Hims.

HumanWare has posted a firmware update for its Brailliant braille displays. Version 2.1 includes support for Windows 10 and Jaws 17. The Brailliant now also supports the HID protocol, which should mean faster and easier connections to a computer, especially in Windows. Check the link on this post for more info and a download link.

If you are a member of the New York Public Library, a free Bookshare membership is waiting for you. The partnership was orchestrated between New York's Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library and Bookshare, which now hosts over 370,000 titles. The memberships are free to all qualifying members. Bookshare also offers a free membership to students through the U.S. Department of Education. We've linked to a post with more information.

64 Oz. Games is rolling the dice on a second Kickstarter campaign, this time to expand their collection of tactile dice for blind RPG and other gamers. The campaign seeks $3,500 to purchase a more modern 3D Printer which will be used to print a variety of dice as well as other game pieces and educational tools. They're already halfway to their goal in the first day of the campaign. Rewards are available for as little as $10, which will give you a die of your choosing. You can go here to view the crowdfunding campaign and donate.

Applications are now being accepted for the National Federation of the Blind's 2016 scholarship program. 30 students will win amounts ranging from $3,000 to $12,000, a free trip to the 2016 national convention in Orlando, and a variety of additional prizes. Those attending college in the fall of 2016 may apply. For more details or to view the application, visit the link on this post. Deadline is March 31, 2016.

Accessible Media Inc. (AMI), an organization providing described television and radio programming in Canada, seeks participants for its research panel. Canadians may offer to participate in focus groups, surveys, or phone interviews about programming and other related issues. Compensation is available for participants. To apply for the panel, follow the link on this post. Thanks to Ka for the tip.

Code Factory is now offering another way for you to get higher quality voices on the NVDA screen reader. The new Eloquence and Vocalizer Expressive add-on lets you use two popular synthesizers with NVDA. Unlike the previously-released SAPI versions of Eloquence and Vocalizer by Code Factory, these are tied to NVDA specifically, meaning you cannot use them with other apps. But with this limitation comes at a lower price, at 59 Euros or about $65 U.S. Dollars. It's available exclusively from Code Factory using the link on this post.

The American Council of the Blind has released ACB Link, a new iOS app to offer information and resources to members and potential members. Users can connect to affiliates and divisions, get general information on blindness, and listen to ACB Radio streams and podcasts. The app was developed by Mike Doise of iaccessibility.net and is available now for free from the iTunes App Store.

Signs of fall are in the air. Leaves are falling, Daylight Saving Time is about to end, and Freedom Scientific has released their annual update to Jaws. Version 17 of the venerable screen reader has just been released to the masses with a major focus on website productivity and scripting. Scripts can now be written for individual websites, and users can save website-specific settings. It includes support for the Windows touch keyboard as well as other new gestures and commands for touch screen navigation. Some features are also being removed, such as sports scores from ESPN and the settings merge utility. You can download the latest version now, which will cost one SMA count for existing users or run as a demo for others. Here's a link to the What's New file.

The wait is finally over for KNFB Reader fans on Android. Sensotec, in collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind, have released a version of the wildly popular OCR and text recognition app to Google Play. The Android version looks similar to its iOS counterpart and recognizes printed materials or imported files within a few seconds. Users can download a trial for free and receive 25 recognitions before needing to upgrade to the full version for $99.95. Android users will also be able to share files to other apps using Android's native share functionality, and read images using the voices on their device including Vocalizer and Eloquence. You can download the trial now from Google Play, which works on Android 4.3 on up.

A team at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has developed a new iPhone app which offers turn-by-turn directions inside buildings, among other places. Navcog is the latest entrant in the growing category of alternative navigational apps, aiming to help blind and visually impaired people navigate buildings and around college campuses. This app uses wireless censors to pinpoint the user's location to within a few feet and provide contextual navigation. The current deployment is limited to a few areas of the college campus, the platform has been created using an open architecture that could seemingly be deployed in other places. If you're nearby, try it out now on the App Store. Here's a more detailed article on the app. Thanks to Mark on Twitter for the tip.

There's been a lot of talk of affordable braille displays, but some tangible results may soon be on the horizon. According to the latest edition of the American Printing House for the Blind newsletter, field testing will soon begin for a 20-cell, sub-$500 braille display, developed by theTransforming Braille Group. The display will connect via USB or Bluetooth and read braille and text files from another device or an SD card slot. It's targeted as a braille reading device and not meant to compete with higher-priced offerings. APH, the National Federation of the Blind, and the Perkins School for the Blind are conducting field evaluations over the coming months. Check the link on this post to the APH newsletter for more details.

A group of MIT alumni are seeking participants who are willing to be interviewed about a possible new mobile technology. According to the interview page, " We have a possible technology in mind which we feel may improve aspects of the experience, however for the moment our goal is to gather some firsthand knowledge of what online mobile interactions are like for the community, rather than gather opinions about our proposal."
Interviews would be done over phone, Skype, or another means. For more information, fill out the form linked from this post.

After a brief absence, the American Printing House for the Blind has reintroduced the Refreshabraille 18-cel braille display. The latest rendition, known as version 3, includes a new, simpler Bluetooth pairing mode, ergonomic updates to the directional pad and space bar, and Micro USB charging (the older version had Mini USB). it still sells for $1,695 and is available now. We've included the list of changes from the latest APH newsletter below.

The Fopydo scanning accessory we told you about last week has reached its funding goal on Kickstarter. 95 people donated a total of $4,500 to fund the companion base for a reading aid for mobile scanning apps such as the KNFB Reader. From here, the creator, Tomek Wardega, plans to post weekly updates to their Kickstarter page and release the accessory later this year. Retail is expected to be around $35.

Tomek Wardega is trying to raise money to create a new stand to help blind people take pictures of documents. The creator of the Fopydo scanning stand is seeking $4,000 to create a complementary book reading base.
According to the Kickstarter page, "A book reading aid was designed for the blind and visually impaired to make it easy to read printed books and documents using applications like KNFB Reader, Prizmo or TextGrabber. It may also be used by all who can see, but would like to convert images of book pages to text and have the text read to them using tools available on their mobile device."
The book reading base would include sections of foam that would hold an open book in place, ensuring that pages wouldn't turn during scanning. Users can pledge $25 to receive just the base or $35 for the base and stand, with an estimated November delivery date.
As of this post, $2,153 of the $4,00 goal has been raised,. The money must be raised by October 8 for the crowdfunding campaign to be successful. Check the Kickstarter page for more information and a much better description of the stand and base.

The American Printing House for the Blind has released a free version of its Nearby Explorer GPS app for Android.