[real-eyes] Re: {spam?} Amazon "Sort Of" Makes the New Kindle Accessible
- From: Robert Beach <rbeach@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 11:54:19 -0500
Interestingly enough, I just read an article this morning on another list in
which NFB praised Amazon for finally listening to their demands for an
accessible device with the release of the new Kindle. Hmmmm, is it, or isn't
it? That's the question.
Robert Lee Beach
Assistive Technology Specialist
Kansas City Kansas Community College
7250 State Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66112
913-288-7671
rbeach@xxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:real-eyes-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Luis Guerra
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2010 11:46 AM
To: free_speech@xxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: {spam?} [real-eyes] Amazon "Sort Of" Makes the New Kindle Accessible
Importance: Low
Hi all,
I'm reposting this article written by Alena Roberts for the Matilda Ziegler
magazine in which she reviews the new Amazon Kindle.
Feature Writer Alena Roberts - Amazon "Sort Of" Makes the New Kindle Accessible
Posted by Matilda on August 9, 2010; This entry is filed under View all posts
in Feature Writer Alena Roberts.
People who are blind or have other reading disabilities currently only have
access to 5% of published work, so you would think that we would be excited
that e-books are becoming so popular. Sadly though, there is still no e-book
reader, not even the newest version of the kindle, that is fully accessible.
It is my philosophy that my blindness should not cause me to have to buy
specialized equipment that costs me more money than I have. Rather, I should be
able to buy the same products that everyone else does because accessibility and
usability are built in. I wanted to believe that when Amazon announced that
this summer's newest version of the Kindle would be accessible to the blind,
that they would actually mean it. I am sad to report, though, that this is not
the case. Thanks to a lawsuit from the NFB and ACB, the menus of the Kindle
have text to speech (TTS) built in, but this appears to be the only change that
has been made.
According to a blog post from Buddy Brannen, "Voice Guide lets you navigate
your Kindle with spoken menus, selectable items, and descriptions. For example,
when you open a book, Kindle speaks your current location and how far you've
read. Presently we don't have the features like enabling the voice guide and
TTS features without sighted assistance, navigate or read by smaller increments
in text to speech, voice guide or text to speech work in the Web browser, or
enabling text to speech for the books which have text to speech option
disabled." As you can see, the changes that were made do not meet the criteria
of a device that is usable by the blind. We can't even turn the TTS on without
sighted assistance. Also, thanks to Amazon allowing the publishers to shut off
TTS in any book they want, we have no way to know if the TTS feature is
available until after we've paid for the book.
There are multiple reasons why I think the blind community needs to let Amazon
know about our concerns. For one, the added accessibility may be enough to
convince the FCC to allow colleges to offer Kindles to their students, even
when they're not really accessible. The blind and visually impaired have a
right to read every published work just like anyone else, and having full
access to a device like the Kindle would give us the access we need.
Finally,
companies like Amazon need to understand that we're not going to buy their
products until we can use them without assistance.
URL
http://tinyurl.com/2bw2mh4
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