TAB Player is a DAISY book player developed by the Department of Computer Engineering of the King Mongkut University of Technology Thonburi for the Thailand Association of the Blind. Intended for both Thai and English books, this neat DAISY player comes in a multi-language, self-voiced interface. It plays text-only, audio-only, and hybrid DAISY books (those with synchronized text and audio) up to the 2.02 specification of the standard.
DAISY is an international standard developed by the DAISY Consortium that has moved the old analog talking books in cassette tapes into the digital domain. Far from being a simple digitization process, DAISY books include a level of structure and navigability that put them at the same level of usability as printed books provide for those without a print impairment. Designed for the blind and visually impaired user (and for anyone with a print disability, for that matter), every function present in the player has its corresponding hotkey, which will allow blind users to move around it just by using the right key combinations. Besides, all menus and messages are self-voiced, so you will not need to have a screen reader installed in your computer to know where you are at any given moment or what action you have just triggered.
This player supports hybrid books, those which include not only the audio of the book but also text and images, perfect for those visually impaired users with good residual sight. The textual and graphic elements will appear in the right-hand panel perfectly synchronized with the audio, highlighting the phrase (in DAISY terms) that is being read aloud. This functionality is also of great help for users with various degrees of dyslexia.
As for its navigation possibilities, it can go to a specific page (if present in the book), move (backwards and forwards) from header to header, chapter to chapter, and phrase to phrase, and search for a specific word or expression in the text when this is available with the book.
This excellent DAISY player is simple and efficient, free and professional-looking, and all it needs to offer that extra value to its users is to be able to support the new DAISY 3 specification.
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