The updates resolve various bigger and smaller compatibility issues with Snow Leopard and all current users are strongly recommended to upgrade to the new versions before installing Mac OS X 10.6.

KeyStrokes 4.1.1 provides a fully-functional virtual keyboard with multilingual word prediction and dwelling for people with physical disabilities.

SwitchXS 2.5.1 is a single or multiple switch-based computer access and communication solution providing full emulation of mouse and keyboard for use with any standard Mac OS X application. Also supports switch accessible communication panels.

Proloquo 2.0.2 is a multilingual speech and communciation solution for Mac OS X enabling people who cannot speak to user their computer as an AAC device. Not to be confused with our Proloquo2Go product, which turns an iPhone or iPod touch into full-featured communication solution for people who have difficulty speaking.

LayoutKitchen 2.1.2 is a keyboard, speech panel and scan panel editor for KeyStrokes, Proloquo and SwitchXS.

GhostReader 1.6.5 is an easy to use multilingual document and selection reader that can also convert text to iPod-ready iTunes files.

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader 1.6 includes the following enhances:

• New voice languages: Arabic, Greek, Russian.
• New high quality voices for existing languages: Italian male voice, Turkish female voice, British female voice, Norwegian male voice.
• Compatibility with Safari 4.
• New localization: Italian (provided by our partner Active Software).

GhostReader can be used by anyone who prefers to listen to text rather then read it. Many professionals, writers, educators and students use it on a daily basis to save time, to proof read their own writing or to learn the pronunciation of foreign languages or to improve their reading and listening comprehension.

Read the full press release for further details.

Read the full press release for further details.

Fast-forward to 2008. Acapela Group and AssistiveWare's partnership has resulted in two products with even higher quality voices, a greater range of languages and more features: Infovox iVox voices that can be used by any speech-using Mac OS X application in the same way as Apple's built-in voices; GhostReader, which can read documents and selected text in many languages and even convert text to iPod and iPhone-ready audiobooks.

Registered Speechissimo users can cross-grade with a discount of 20% for a limited time to GhostReader (normal price 39.95 euro/USD excluding VAT) or, outside North America only, to an Infovox iVox plus GhostReader bundle (normal price starting at 109 euro/USD excluding VAT). These offers run until 4th August 2008 and are only available for direct purchase through AssistiveWare's online store.

To apply for a discount coupon registered users of Speechissimo should fill out this web form.

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader 1.5.1 includes the following enhances:

• Export to iTunes now: (1) Sets album, album artist, and year to default values; (2) Puts the date and time of audio creation in the iTunes comments field; (3) Uses the GhostReader logo as default album art.
• Fixes spinning cursor issue with Pages 2008
• Acapela Group provided fixes to the following voice issues: (1) Activation problem with American Spanish; (2) Occasional crash with the Italian Chiara voice; (3) Text encoding problems with Czech and Polish voices.

GhostReader can be used by anyone who prefers to listen to text rather then read it. Many professionals, writers, educators and students use it on a daily basis to save time, to proof read their own writing or to learn the pronunciation of foreign languages or to improve their reading and listening comprehension.

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader 1.5 is a major update with the following new features and enhancements:

• Adds new natural sounding voices for Czech, Polish, Swedish and Finnish while existing voices have been enhanced
• Adds a pronunciation editor, which can be used to modify the way a word is pronounced or to add new abbreviations
• Adds direct export to iTunes of documents and selected text for playback on iPhone or iPod
• Adds user-selectable encoding for export to iTunes (AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless)
• In Leopard now also reads DOCX and ODT documents
• Export to iTunes now runs in the background
• Enhanced responsiveness when speaking selected text or text below the cursor
• Speaking selected text now also works in floating windows such as those of the Leopard Help Viewer
• Speak Text Below the Cursor now speaks the alt. tags for images and buttons in web pages, Mail and widgets
• Speak Text Below the Cursor now also speaks just the paragraph below the cursor in Mail, TextEdit and Pages 2008
• Many other enhancements and fixes

GhostReader can be used by anyone who prefers to listen to text rather then read it. Many professionals, writers, educators and students use it on a daily basis to save time, to proof read their own writing or to learn the pronunciation of foreign languages or to improve their reading and listening comprehension.

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader trilingual license (74.95 Euro/US$ excluding VAT) is available at:

Worldwide:
ConvenienceWare

Europe:
Application Systems Heidelberg, Application Systems Paris

GhostReader boxed edition (54.95 Euro including VAT) is available at:

UK

Retail Stores: UK Apple Stores, Wyvern Business Systems

Germany, Austria and German speaking Switzerland

Retail Stores Germany: Compustore PC GmbH, M&M Trading, Mac House GmbH, Macconnect, MacFoyer, MACSYSTEMS GmbH, M-Shop Göttingen and many other Apple Resellers

Retail stores Austria: McShark Multimedia AG, Mac office, m-store Grafoprint GmbH and many other Apple Resellers

Online: Arktis, Amazon.de, Application Systems Heidelberg.

France and French-speaking Switzerland

Retail Stores: FNAC, iConcept, BeMac, ordiTICE and other Apple Resellers

Online: FNAC online, Amazon.fr, Application Systems Paris.

Belgium

Retail Stores: Mac Line

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader is a Universal Binary, multilingual speech solution for Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their Word, PDF, RTF and text documents with naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. It also allows users to create their own personal podcasts or audiobooks by exporting to iPhone and iPod-ready iTunes tracks. Or, users can just use GhostReader to speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward, rewind, skip sentence/paragraph and re-listen to sentence/paragraph functionality. In some applications, such as Safari, GhostReader enables users to listen to text by just pointing the cursor at the text. Sit back and relax while GhostReader reads for you!

Read the full press release for further details.

GhostReader is a Universal Binary, multilingual speech solution for Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their documents with naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. It also allows users to create their own personal podcasts or audio books by exporting to iPod-ready iTunes tracks. Or, users can just use it to speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward and rewind functionality. In some applications, such as Safari, GhostReader enables users to listen to text by just pointing the cursor at the text. Now users can sit back and relax while GhostReader reads the text under the cursor.

Voices are currently available for the following languages: US English, UK English, Czech, Finnish, French, Canadian French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, American Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Norwegian, Turkish and Swedish. GhostReader itself is localized in English, French and German.

Version 1.1 offers the following new features:

• New languages with high quality female voices: American Spanish (Rosa) and Canadian French (Louise)
• New languages with medium quality voices: Turkish, Icelandic and Czech
• New high quality voices for Dutch (Max) and British English (Peter)
• Adds a German localization (English and French were already available)
• Enhanced listening experience with buttons to re-listen the current paragraph or sentence or to skip to the next one
• For school use preferences can now be locked and the content of the reader window can be exported to an RTF document
• Many other interface and usability enhancements
• Expanded Help facility

Read the full press release for further details and pricing.

TextParrot is a Universal Binary, multilingual speech solution for Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their documents with naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. It also allows users to create their own personal podcasts or audio books by exporting to iPod-ready iTunes tracks. Or, users can just use it to speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward and rewind functionality. It even allows users to listen to text by just pointing the cursor at the text and sit back and relax while TextParrot reads the text under the cursor.

Starting today, TextParrot is now available with naturally sounding voices of up to three different languages. Voices are currently available for the following languages: US English, UK English, French, German, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, and Swedish. TextParrot itself is localized in English and French, other localizations are in preparation.

Read the full press release.

The first product, released today, is TextParrot^® 1.0. TextParrot is a Universal Binary, multilingual speech solution for Mac OS X that allows users to listen to their documents with naturally sounding voices in a language of choice. It also allows users to create their own personal podcasts or audio books by exporting to iPod-ready iTunes tracks. Or, users can just use it to speak selected text in a handy reader window with play, fast forward and rewind functionality. It even allows users to listen to text by just pointing the cursor at the text and sit back and relax while TextParrot reads the text under the cursor.

Read the full press release.