Many of us on this list have tried to put the best possible spin on the Kindle accessibility issue. No doubt about it: Amazon has made it possible for a wealth of books to be available quickly. Many of these books have proven invaluable to many users on this list. However, the fact remains that since the Kindle Keyboard came out, I don't believe there has been one single dramatic improvement in the text-to-speech structure. Little things like the keyboard shortcuts, convenient and helpful as they are, are enhancements, not dramatic improvements.
Craig On 8/18/2012 5:58 PM, Rick Alfaro wrote:
I think this is fantastic. The only way to get to a company like Amazon is through its bottom line. They've continued to ignore the poor accessibility in all of their readers including the Kindle Keyboard. Yes, the Keyboard has some "token" accessibility and we can use that model to an extent but I don't think there's anyone that would disagree with the fact that it still has a long way to go in that regard. This is great news as far as I'm concerned. Best, Rick -----Original Message----- From: vi-kindle-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vi-kindle-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of David Goldfield Sent: Saturday, August 18, 2012 1:07 PM To: vi-kindle@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vi-kindle] State Department cancels large Kindle contract Hmmmmm. Very interesting announcement from Macworld's blog. Remember the NFB went after the State Department for planning to distribute those Kindles overseas due to their inaccessibility? Well, I'll bet that had a little something to do with the State Department's decision to cancel their order. Maybe. I initially had mixed feelings about this when I read about the NFB's response to the State Department planning to do this but now I think it's a good thing. Amazon has lost a 16.5 million dollar order which is very significant. Perhaps this will get them moving into implementing accessibility into future Kindle products. Here's the blog post. State Department cancels large Kindle contract by John Ribeiro, IDG News Service US P-to-P companies will disappear, exec says The U.S Department of State has withdrawn plans to place a $16.5 million order on Amazon.com for its Kindle Touch devices along with content management and logistics, stating that it intends to conduct additional market research and re-examine its requirements for the program. In June, the department had said that it intended to award the contract to Amazon.com, with an anticipated value of $16.5 million over the life of the contract, which would be one base year and four option years. The acquisition by the department included an immediate need for 2,500 e-readers and 50 titles of content; it also required provision of a secure, centrally managed content distribution and management platform to oversee an unlimited number of devices as well as the ability to access and download content over 3G cellular networks and Wi-Fi connections worldwide, according to a note in June. The Kindle was identified as the only product that met the department's requirements, according to the Justification and Approval (J&A) report. Apple's iPad was rejected because it fell under the tablet or computer category rather than as a single-function e-reader, and had additional features that "are not only unnecessary, but also present unacceptable security and usability risks for the government's needs in this particular project." The Kindle also scored over some other e-readers on the market as the competitors could not provide the text-to-speech requirement, the long-lasting battery life and the free Wi-Fi with a global network that was required, the note said. The J&A had stated that "costs associated with downloading content either via 3G or Wi-Fi must be not separately priced." The e-reader had to have a battery life no less than about 8 hours of continuous reading or approximately 7.5 hours of video playback. Amazon.com was not immediately available for comment on the cancellation of the order.
