Below is an interesting article about a new way of creating refreshable braille. It's not ready for prime time as yet, but has some exciting possibilities.
Planon DocuPen (r 700 recommended): Here is an interesting device. It is basically a
hand scanner that is about 9 inches long and about three quarters of an inch wide. It has
its own built in memory and storage and can transfer what it has scanned to your laptop via
the USB port. The DocuPen comes with the PaperPort software which includes OCR. Ideally,
you could take this to class or to a business meeting with you, scan print handouts, OCR them
on your laptop and listen to them with your screen reader. I bought one and tested it out and
was very impressed with the quality of the scanning. I Googled the device name and found the
lowest price I could at the time ($149.00) and I would recommend that you do the same. If you
want more information about the DocuPen, Google for that, too.
Acer Aspire Notebook Computer: This computer is TINY! But, boy is it powerful! I ordered mine
from Walmart Online for $348.00. You can also buy them at the Walmart store. They come with
120 gig harddrive, 1 gig of memory, 3 USB ports and 2 SD card ports; built in wireless, built in
webcam and microphone AND Windows XP Home. The keyboard is amazingly comfortable to
use despite the small size of the computer and that, in conjunction with the above DocuPen make
a great pair (You could probably take them to a restaurant and read menus with them ... kind of a
"less expensive Kurzweil Reader.")