[vi-kindle] Re: Kindle Keyboard May Be Discontinued

  • From: David Goldfield <disciple1211@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 21 May 2013 10:00:14 -0400

Jessica and others,
Zamzar
www.zamzar.com
is a Web site which specializes in free file conversion. I believe it can be used to convert .azw files, which is a Kindle ebook file, into plain text. In theory, this should work with books with TTS blocked. Also, if there's a book with blocked tts, write to the author of the book directly; authors usually have their own blogs or Facebook pages and it's usually easy to contact them electronically. Let the author know that you want to buy his/her book but you can't because his/her publisher blocked TTS and won't allow you to read it. From my limited experience, I think you'll hear from that author very, very quickly because authors are in the business of making money like everybody else. Writing to the publisher, unless it's a small, responsive publisher, is probably a waste of time. Simon and Schuster seems to be the worst offender when it comes to blocking TTS. Don't believe me; search for Star Trek on the Kindle store and you'll find that most of them have TTS blocked. 

On 5/21/2013 9:47 AM, jessica brown wrote:
How do you read kindle books that do not have text to speech enabled? Do you use a braille display with your iPod? 

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russ Kiehne" <russ94577@xxxxxxxxx
To: <vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date sent: Tue, 21 May 2013 06:03:43 -0700
Subject: [vi-kindle] Re: Kindle Keyboard May Be Discontinued

It will be interesting to see if they replace it with some thing else?
Or will they make the Kindle fire fully accessible?
I just upgraded my ipod touch to the 5th generation. I can use that to read Kindle books when my Kindle Keyboard stopps working. I will use my Ipod to 
read some Kindle books that don't have text-to-speech enabled.

-----Original Message-----
From: Tiny Puppy
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 9:38 AM
To: vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vi-kindle] Re: Kindle Keyboard May Be Discontinued

I agree.  So much for their half hearted attempt at accessibility.
Butch

----- Original Message -----
From: "Russ Kiehne" <russ94577@xxxxxxxxx
To: <vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 8:40 AM
Subject: [vi-kindle] Re: Kindle Keyboard May Be Discontinued


Well, I'll continue to use my Kindle Keyboard untill it stopps working.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Goldfield
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 8:03 AM
To: vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [vi-kindle] Kindle Keyboard May Be Discontinued

Amazon has not officially confirmed this, but the Digital Reader reports
that our beloved KK has likely been pulled from Amazon's stock; see

http://www.the-digital-reader.com/2013/05/17/did-amazon-kill-off-
the-kindle-keyboard/#more-51470

I went to Amazon's site and see that the KK is only available via
third-party sellers, the cheapest one currently going for around $99.
Am I surprised?  Not really.  I am assuming that the main reason for why
Amazon kept the KK around was due to its accessibility.  However, we now
have a fairly accessible IOS app and, supposedly, the larger Fires have
some accessibility, which Amazon claims will make its way into the
smaller models.  We'll see.

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