Executive Products would like to inform everyone that we have just completed and created a new case for the following new products;
1.  ICon by LevelStar
2.  Braille+ by APH
These units are designed and created with the user in mind and made with soft leather. We understand that your units are fragile and we take pride and extreme care to create a protective and functional case. 
Description
TurtleBack has created a new soft form-fitted custom leather case for your Icon / Braille +. This case is made of Placid soft leather that fits snuggly around your unit, and has a large expandable storage zipper compartment for your flash cards. The case has been designed to enable the user to easily utilize your Icon / Braille + while the case is on the unit, and allows the unit to be carried on a comfortable strap or clipped on your belt. The unit may be used while walking, sitting or simply standing. The case has easy access to the headset jack, USB port, and SD flash memory cards. The case is manufactured with genuine placid soft leather to provide durable outer protection. This case comes with a leather covered belt clip on the back of the unit.
We would like to thank Bob and Ruth Acosta from Accessible World who had loaned us their units to use as prototypes for our new cases. After they got their units back, along with the new case that we designed, they stated “The Braille plus and the Icon fit in them beautifully. I love the leather and the velcro on both sides.”
Price 43.99 Shipment starts April 23, 2009

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Several points are missing here.  Amazon should be making the Kindel accessible to the blind and low vision students who can listen to it’s text to speech reader only after someone else sets it up for them.  None of the controls work with the text to speech software.  Second, regarding the Braille book reader—I still don’t know what is different about this new device that sets it apart from the Braille Note and other digital storage units that use “refreshable Braille” pads. 
Third and most important, America is in the midst of a Braille literacy crisis.  Only 10% of America’s blind kids (down from 50% in the ‘60s) are taught to read & write Braille, still the only tool offering true literacy to blind people on a par with print. It affects all of us , because it results in lower employment of blind adults & the need for tax-payer support of intelligent and willing people. Seventy percent of working-age, blind adults are unemployed. Of the thirty percent who work, ninety percent read Braille. 

Congress recognized this problem and authorized the minting of the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollar.  The coin supports the Braille Readers are Leaders” campaign of the National Federation of the Blind, which seeks to double the number of blind kids learning Braille by 2015.

Unfortunately, there have only been a handful of articles nationwide about this, and sales are lagging – only 42,000 of the 400,000 produced.  Compare this to the Abraham Lincoln coin also minted this year which has long since sold out all 450,000 produced.

Please, help us get the word out.

Learn more about the “Braille Readers are Leaders” campaign

<a href= “http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Braille_Initiative.asp”  target=“new”>http://www.nfb.org/nfb/Braille_Initiative.asp</a>

Visit the US Mint: <a href= “http://www.usmint.gov”  target=“new”>http://www.usmint.gov</a>

or call 1-800-USA-MINT (872-6468).

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