Hi, Ian.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. My disgust at publishers and vendors is not
because they force people to buy from specific stores. That's quite
disgusting, you understand, but it is the usual thing, all consumers
suffer from it. It has nothing to do with this list or with Jim's
question and its resolution, I pointed it out because you were
speaking of Kindle when Jim was speaking of Play. My problem is that
Amazon has taken six years to get to decent access, and that decent
access is on one platform. Adobe Digital Editions works, sort of, in
the sense that it allows screen readers to read the books when it's
not crashing, which I suppose is satisfactory. That really is all. No
hardware reader is accessible, to my knowledge. Kobo's software reader
is not accessible, to my knowledge. Google's web browser reader I know
little about but it doesn't seem to work unless there's some sort of
non-obvious method of making it work, which is why I asked Jim if he
could download the book as an Adobe Epub from the Google store. Many
books can be so downloaded, many can't. Basically, after slightly more
than five years of the Ebook being fairly mainstream, we have two
accessible solutions out of several dozen. No solution has been
accessible for more than a year (the Kindle keyboard doesn't count, to
have a book read by a voice one doesn't choose without navigation
isn't access). My difficulty comes in when I ask when Kobo, Sony, and
Google are going to make their hardware and software accessible. Each
has had at least two years to do it in. I'd also like to know when
Amazon and Adobe are going to crank up the time machine and give
people the knowledge and pleasure they could have had five years ago
if it wasn't for their security. It should be noted that their
security has been broken for longer than their products have been
accessible. Again, though, the problem here isn't that products were
not accessible as, for example, a printed book is inaccessible, a
painting is inaccessible, a photograph is inaccessible... That's just
our bad luck. The problem here is that these ebooks were specifically
designed to be inaccessible, or were designed wreckless as to whether
they could be used by a blind or deafblind person. Smashwords sells,
and Gutenberg gives away, Epub and Kindle books which are perfectly
accessible to blind and deafblind users and always have been. If it
weren't for their security, Amazon would have done the same from the
very first day of sales.
Sorry about the soapbox, folks. Jim, if you still want the eBook and
will let us know about it, feel free to send the titles and I'm sure
someone will have a look, it can probably be obtained.
Aman
On 7/30/13, Ian Macrae <ian.macrae@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi aman, I completely agree that the publishers have been incredibly
foot-dragging over this whole process and it is true that blind
people still do not have the kind of open access to books that sighted people
do.
However, I'd argue that if the price to pay for the kind of access
brought by the Kindle app is that we're forced into buying books from
amazon, ', then I'm happy to pay that price. And it's worth noting
that anyone who chooses to source books in other and illegal ways or
who chooses Jim's option to scan can still have the texts delivered
to and read by the Kindle app using the send documents option.
Ian Macrae
Editor
Disability Now
6 Market Road
London
N7 9PW
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www.disabilitynow.org.uk<http://www.disabilitynow.org.uk>
Follow us: @disabilitynow
On 30 Jul 2013, at 12:05, Aman Singer wrote:
Hi.
With respect, I agree, it's a mine field. I don't want to go on a
rant, but we have seen, over the past ten years, the publishing
industry go from not caring about accessibility (printed books are
not accessible by the nature of the product), to being actively
hostile to accessibility (electronic text is accessible to blind
users by its nature, but publishers do their best to make it
unusable). The reward for going through the mines, though, is that
you get a book without errors with nicely divided chapters, and don't
get pain in the arms from scanning. It's particularly great if you
have to read in braille, though the absence of garbage characters is
appreciated even when reading with speech.
Aman
On 7/30/13, Jim McAuslan
<jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi Aman,
I'm using a windows 7 pc. No I haven't really checked all that stuff
out yet.
It's a bit of a minefield, or is that a nightmare, perhaps both, smile.
Jim
On 30/07/2013 11:44, Aman Singer wrote:
Hi, Jim.
I'm sorry, I ought to have been more specific. What type of PC do you
have (Mac, Windows, or Linux?). What screen reader do you use if you
use Windows or Linux? Do you use a braille display? Finally, are you
able to determine whether the books you want are available for
download to reader or can only be read online through Google's reader?
Aman
On 7/30/13, Jim McAuslan
<jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi Aman,
Besides my Victor Stream I use my pc for reading text books, mainly
those I have scanned myself.
Jim
On 30/07/2013 11:25, Aman Singer wrote:
Hi.
Google Play books are a bit odd and how they can be read depends upon
whether they are available in Epub format and what AT you have. If I
may ask, what do you have available besides the Victor Stream? The
stream will not work with these books in the majority of cases.
If anyone knows of a way that is certain to work with all Google Play
books, I, for one, would appreciate hearing of it.
Aman
On 7/30/13, Jim McAuslan
<jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:jim.mcauslan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Hi List,
I've been able to source two novels but they are e publications and
are both available from Google
Play. My question is how do I read an e book? Will I have to
purchase an app to read them on my pc or on my now ageing Victor
Stream.
Should I buy another device such as a kindle, and how VI friendly are
those?
Many thanks
--
Jim McAuslan from sunny Findhorn
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