[bookport] Re: New Bookport ideas

  • From: "Walt Smith" <walt@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 11:21:30 -0400

A BP with smaller keys might be okay, but I do wonder about the elderly or 
multi-handicapped user's ability to manipulate something that would enable a 
design of the size you mention here--a cigarette pack. While I don't know 
this to have been the case when the original device was designed, the 
present keypad certainly looks as if this section of the potential market 
was considered. I know from experience and observation that many elderly 
users just can't cope very well with buttons the size most of us find 
usable. Since NLS, from what I gather, isn't planning to produce a truly 
portable player when they move to digital Talking Books, I can imagine APH 
wanting to fill this gap, provided they can work with NLS to get the 
necessary permissions and work out the technology, so these folks would 
absolutely have to be taken into account in any design considerations.

I think that on balance, I also like the idea of moving to SD cards from 
CompactFlash, particularly if industry forecasts indicate that even 
higher-capacity SD cards may be forthcoming in the future and if NLS decides 
to move in that direction. Right now, 4 gig is the largest available size 
and if APH succeeds in removing all card size limitations, I can see that 
some folks may very well want to buy even larger-capacity cards. My sole 
concern about using SD cards is their relative fragility when compared to 
CompactFlash--I just see them as being too easy to damage or lose. 
CompactFlash is certainly going to continue to be around for a long, long 
time, given the number of devices that are dependent on them, but using SD 
would certainly aid in designing a smaller player.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Tanner" <david-tanner@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bookport@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 8:20 PM
Subject: [bookport] Re: New Bookport ideas


It's size is about half to two thirds an inch thick, about 2 inches wide, 
and about 5 inches high.  I am guessing it would need to be a bit larger 
than this unit in order to have decent size keys, but it would be nice if 
the BP could be a bit smaller; say the size of a cigarette pack.




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