Now that a great thing is out of the bag! Dr. Z sometimes tries his best to be impartial, but sometimes, one needs to cross the line of impartiality to tell the world about something he has been with the past few months and couldn’t resist holding it back.

Dr. Z has been a beta tester for the Z4 product the past few months-he has used the Z4 when he traveled all over giving his talks on numbering–used it in countless airports and hotels (while it was a beta product!)

Dr. Z has been in the technology field for over 40 years–he has white hair, attesting to his age in technology. He knows the difference between a good product and a great one and the Z4 product is one that falls into the “great” category of a product. Doctors often prescribe medicine or treatments for their patients. Dr. Z is prescribing all video communication users (VRS and point to point) to use the Z4 product. For starters, it works on a PC or a Mac. You can build your contact list on the web or on the Z4, and it will be saved either way and will always be there. If you want to show a web site while you are in communication mode, the Z4 makes it easy to show this page. If you want to see the face of a hearing person who has a webcam while doing a VRS call, the Z4 can show three video shots, yourself, the interpreter and the hearing person you are talking to. Finally, it can record your video conversations–you can save it and send the conversation as an attachment to an email. This is scratching the surface with more to come…

The secret to the completeness of this product is that it was designed by deaf people for use by deaf and hard of hearing people. When a shoemaker makes shoes for himself, the shoes fit perfectly. The same is true of the Z4.

Over the holidays, my wife and I were delayed in Las Vegas. We needed to reach her deaf mother to let her know of the delay. At that time, her Blackberry was down–remember the great Blackberry outage at that time? Dr. Z immediately thought of his Mac in his backpack and pulled it out and with the Z4, and no plugs, no cords (the Mac had a good wifi connection at the airport) and she was able to connect with her mother to let her know of her delay. It is that spontaneous event that makes the Z4 a great product.

You can download the Z4 at www.zvrs.com. Try it, you’ll like it, believe me.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.