Bedford, MA - June 28, 2005

Kurzweil Educational Systems Announces Kurzweil 1000 Version 10

New DAISY Audio File Creation Reads Documents on Portable Players

Product Preview, User Group Meetings and Software Awards at NFB and ACB Conventions

Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc., innovator of reading technology for individuals with visual or learning disabilities, today announced Kurzweil 1000™ Version 10, advanced scanning, reading and learning software for people who are blind or visually impaired. The latest version of the software offers numerous new features including the ability to make content accessible on DAISY players providing Kurzweil 1000 users access to a broader choice of reading material and the ability to take content wherever they go. Additional new Version 10 features and enhancements give Kurzweil 1000 users the ability to further customize the technology for their personal use, added access to online resources, the industry’s best scanning and OCR tools, and table creation and editing.

“Kurzweil 1000 users know the importance of being able to easily navigate books and other scanned documents. The ability to create DAISY audio files for use in portable DAISY players or computers with DAISY software now gives users the option of bringing their reading material with them wherever they go,” said Michael Sokol, President and CEO of Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc. “Such navigation and portability features demonstrate Kurzweil Educational Systems’ dedication to providing powerful, yet easy-to-use tools for the blind community to access the written word, anytime, anywhere.”

Kurzweil 1000 Version 10 new features include:

• Audio DAISY Document Creation – Users can read documents created with Kurzweil 1000 on a DAISY player or computer with DAISY software. With Type 2 DAISY file support, full audio and audible document navigation, such as a table of contents, indices and bookmarks, users can quickly access different parts of a document and navigate the document.
• Table Creation, Editing and Reading – Kurzweil 1000 users can access and work with tables with ease. They can create and modify tables using simple editing operations. In addition, the user can convert blocks of text into a table and, conversely, turn a table into text. Table Reading has also been enhanced to provide easier access to table-rich content, especially from Web sources such as Wikipedia.
• Improved Scanning and Recognition – Users can obtain better scanning and recognition results with Kurzweil 1000 Version 10 as it now incorporates ScanSoft OCR 12.6. In addition, a new noise filter option lets users ignore regions near the edge of a page that were incorrectly identified as text.
• Expanded Online Search and Retrieval – Kurzweil 1000 users can find the latest books quickly with Bookshare.org’s New Books section and Bookshare.org subscribers with institutional accounts can now download books for eligible students from within Kurzweil 1000. Also, Version 10 gives direct access to NFB Publications such as Voice of the Diabetic and Future Reflections, as well as Braille Monitor.
• Updated High Quality Text to Speech from NeoSpeech – Users can listen to the best text-to-speech on the market with updated versions of the Kate and Paul voices from NeoSpeech.
• Microsoft Word Conversion – Users with Microsoft Word can open and save any file format that Microsoft Word supports, making it easier to access and work with a wide range of files, in addition to the file formats currently supported by Kurzweil 1000.

The new features in Kurzweil 1000 Version 10 expand upon the extensive list of existing features, including color scanning, flexible writing and editing tools, the ability to send files to email, Braille embosser compatibility, and photocopier, fax and calculator applications.

Availability and Pricing

Kurzweil 1000 Version 10 is scheduled to ship to customers later this summer and can be previewed at the 2005 National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Convention being held July 2 - July 8 in Louisville, Kentucky at the Galt House Hotel Booth 3 and at the 2005 American Council of the Blind (ACB) National Convention being held July 2 - July 9 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Riviera Hotel Booth 75. Visitors to the Kurzweil Educational Systems booths at these two conventions will also have the opportunity to register for a drawing to win a free copy of Kurzweil 1000.

A single license of Kurzweil 1000 retails for $995. Volume pricing is also available.

Kurzweil 1000 can be purchased directly from Kurzweil Educational Systems at 800-894-5374 (within the U.S. or Canada) or 781-276-0600 (outside the U.S. or Canada), or from Kurzweil Educational Systems' worldwide network of resellers listed at www.kurzweiledu.com/resellers.asp, or by visiting the company web store at http://store.cambiumlearning.com.

User Groups and Software Awards

Kurzweil Educational Systems will also host User Group Meetings at both the ACB and NFB conferences. At the User Group meetings, Kurzweil 1000 users can meet one another, as well as Kurzweil Educational Systems employees and resellers; find out more about Kurzweil 1000 Version 10; and participate in drawings to win free Kurzweil 1000 upgrade coupons.

At the NFB Convention, the User Group Meeting will be held on Wednesday, July 6 from 5 – 7 p.m. in the Wilkinson Room at The Galt House Hotel. At the ACB Convention, the User Group Meeting will be on Monday, July 4 from 5 – 7 p.m. in Room 112/113 at The Riviera Hotel.

At the conferences, Kurzweil Educational Systems will also recognize the NFB and ACB Scholarship winners by providing each with a copy of Kurzweil 1000. At this year’s ACB Convention, the software awards will be presented to each of the 22 ACB Scholarship winners in memory of John R. Mattioli, a former active member of ACB and Kurzweil Educational Systems software developer. Kurzweil Educational Systems has renamed the annual software awards “The John Mattioli Memorial Kurzweil 1000 Software Awards.” Mrs. Laurie Mattioli will present the software awards to the ACB Scholarship winners on behalf of Kurzweil Educational Systems.

About Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc.

Kurzweil Educational Systems, a Cambium Learning Company, is the industry leader and innovator of reading, writing and learning solutions for people with learning disabilities, and people who are blind or visually impaired. Ray Kurzweil, a co-founder of the original company, invented computer-based reading machine technology 25 years ago to provide access to printed text for the blind. With a pioneering history in developing assistive technology, the company has received worldwide recognition for enabling people with disabilities to lead more independent lives through improved reading, writing and learning abilities. Kurzweil Educational Systems and Kurzweil 3000 have recently received several industry excellence awards from organizations including the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), the Learning Disabilities Association of Massachusetts (LDAM), The Heller Reports, Media and Methods, eSchool News, District Administration, Technology & Learning and ComputEd Gazette publications. For more company, product and software awards information, visit www.kurzweiledu.com.

Contact

Collaborative Insight, Inc.

Kerry Quintiliani
617-357-7789
quintiliani@collaborative.com