For IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 23, 2001

Integration

On February the 21st the regular meeting of the Integration club was
held. The attendance of the club's regular meetings has already become a
rather boring subject. however, this problem begins to question the very
necessity of the club's existence. Not many club members attended
the last meeting, but several rather interesting subjects were
discussed, so there was something to miss for those who did not turn up.

To make a presentation at the meeting we invited Mr. Oosik. He
Represented the Logos company. Sure enough, Mr. Oosik is not
a policy maker in the field of adaptive equipment and software
production. His responsibility is to provide the funding for such
projects.

Mr. Oosik told the audience about the peculiarities regarding the
marketing policy of Freedom Scientific - the company manufacturing
JAWS, which is the screen access software for the blind. This company
believes that the prices of their products should be the same all over
the world. Although there are several discount schemes, they do not
apply to individual customers. Mr. OOsik told the audience about the
negotiations conducted with Freedom Scientific. He also made some
suggestions that might help the Russian individual users to obtain
JAWS at discount prices. Besides, we discussed the idea of writing a grant,
which we could title The JAWSification of Russia. Mr. OOsik
promised to assist in writing this grant and to use his influence in
order to win it. This idea got an enthusiastic support, and it will be
worked on in the nearest future.

Mr. OOsik also presented some new information concerning the
tendencies in the field of adaptive equipment for the blind. It is
quite obvious that THE DEVELOPMENT OF so called "reading machines" IS A WAY
INTO A DEAD END. THE MOST HONEST MANUFACTURERS TEND to REJECT SUCH
INNOVATIONS concentrating on other choices. Mr. OOsik gave a demonstration
of a note-taker called Rocket Book. This electronic aid is capable of
storing a considerable amount of information, which can be read from its
display. It has powerful screen magnification capabilities allowing visually
impaired people to read long documents without putting much pressure on
their eyes. Texts can be downloaded from the Internet of copied from another
computer. Currently, the work is going on the similar note-takers with
speech and/or Braille output.

Mr. OOsik informed the meeting about the Logos' plans to manufacture the
talking books in MP3 format. This format allows to record over 40 hours of
spoken texts on a single CD-ROM. The Daisy format has obviously been leading
digital recording the wrong way and slowed down its development. Nowadays,
some companies sell the books in MP3 format recorded for sighted people.
They can also be borrowed from some major libraries.

Apart form presenting some information, Mr. OOsik asked several questions.
They were concerning the sales opportunities for JAWS software and the
distribution of the talking books in MP3 format. I think some Integration
mailing list members might like to know them too. Our estimates show that at
the moment there are over 500 visually computer users in Russia. Many of
them would certainly like to become registered users of the popular JAWS
software and read books in MP3 format. Mr. OOsik was pleased to hear this
information and promised to continue his co-operation with our club.

One of these joint activities is going to be a meeting with the CEO of
Freedom Scientific - the manufacturer of JAWS software. He plans to visit
Moscow in late April or early May. Mr. Oosik promised to forward our
invitation to attend our club's meeting to such a welcome guest.

Another announcement at the meeting was regarding the Internet access at cut
rates. The negotiations between our club the Comstar company resulted in
the Comstar's willingness to sell their Internet card to the club with a
rebate. this rebate is 30% of the retail price. Besides, in the nearest
future the club may get an opportunity for some additional discounts on The
Comstar's internet cards. However, this discount will be offered only to
those club members who did not get a discounted internet access from the
club and those who are in extreme need of it. The priority will be given to
students and professionals.

A few other interesting subjects were discussed at the meeting, but this
press-release is not meant to be a transcript of the session. To conclude, I
express the hope that the next meeting of our club will be attended by many
more of the club members, who may prepare the reports about new software,
Internet resources and other news concerning the interests of our club.

Andrey Kochetkov
Vice-president
Club Integration