Written by Steven Baum, VP Engineering

As I write this, Version 13 of Kurzweil 1000 is being prepared for release to customers. This is something of an achievement — not many software products survive to reach the grand old age of thirteen major releases over fifteen years. I found a review of version 2, when the product was still called Omni 1000, which called it "by far the most feature-rich OCR package for blind people currently available". We’ve added a few features since that release.

At its best, a software product is a conversation between those that produce it and those who use it. We’re blessed with a great group of customers — demanding, opinionated, and vocal. That is as it should be. A new version is the developer’s response to the various ideas contributed so generously by the customers. I hope you like it. But I also hope that it gives you a few new ideas as to how to make it even better in the future. You can share those ideas with me by adding comments to this blog, or by participating in the Kurzweil 1000 List Serve.

New features in version 13 include:

• Expanded support for Document Cameras.
• The ability to read and write documents in the EPUB® format.
• Support for Microsoft^® Speech Platform Runtime 11, giving customers access to more than a dozen additional text-to-speech voices in a variety of languages.
• Two of the most popular OCR technologies, ABBYY^® FineReader^® 10 and
  Nuance^® OmniPage^® 18.
• Automatic bookmarking.

Enjoy, and let me know what you’d like in version 14.

Are you ready to take it for a spin?

Sign-up for a 30-day free trial or contact us for a guided tour.