Welcome to the South African talking computer, the SAnote

The SAnote is a fully-functional, portable, talking computer for the blind. It is designed, developed, manufactured and distributed in South Africa. It is multilingual, user-friendly and affordable. The SAnote is ready-to-use out-of-the-box, but its software is customisable to individual needs.

But what exactly is SAnote? And how does it work? SAnote looks like a standard QWERTY keyboard. However, this computer provides the user with feedback through synthesised speech. Its user interface is an easy-to-use menu navigation system that allows you to browse the web, use the scientific calculator and post to Twitter – to name but a few of its applications. The system offers braille support for external braille displays through brltty. It even has enhanced audio functionality that enables audio recording and playback. This novel computer is available in all eleven official South African languages through integration with the CSIR's Qfrency text-to-speech (TTS) system. You can switch between languages with one keystroke and without leaving the program you are currently running.

With SAnote you can –

• Listen to speech synthesis in English, Afrikaans, Sepedi and Setswana
• Copy, move, rename, delete and print files
• Send and receive emails (smtp/pop3)
• Play, record and edit audio files in most popular audio formats
• Browse the web
• Access Twitter
• Read Daisy books (Daisy 2.02 format)
• Look up words in the offline dictionary
• Use the scientific calculator, unit conversion and word-processing utilities
• Create customisable databases
• Share files with other devices like your mobile phone
• Listen and copy audio or data CDs and DVDs