The media is talking about braille and literacy, a topic jump-started by a New York Times Magazine article, “Listening to Braille,” by Rachel Aviv. The author writes that new technology may be undermining Braille literacy as people who are blind are now “reading” via e-books, iPods, telephone news services and other text-to-speech devices. Aviv’s article centers [...]
Two universities say they will not deploy Amazon’s Kindle DX to distribute electronic textbooks to their students, citing the Kindle’s lack of accessible features for people with print disabilities. While the Kindle DX features text-to-speech technology that can read textbooks aloud, the menus of the device are not accessible to the blind, making it [...]
A blind blogger has started a letter-writing campaign asking President Obama to support worldwide access to books for the blind and visually impaired.
Amazon’s new Kindle DX, designed for reading textbooks and newspapers, will include text-to-speech to allow students with print disabilities to read textbooks out loud. Amazon’s Director of Kindle Books, Laura Porco, said the company is working with three of the top five textbook publishers — Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley, along with more than 75 University [...]
Today I attended the Authors Guild protest in New York City, and turnout was good. There were about 100 protesters in all, many who are blind or have sight impairments, along with representatives from the International Dyslexia Association. The protesters teamed up with the Reading Rights Coalition to press the Guild to allow books to [...]
Some pictures from the Authors Guild protest at the Guild’s headquarters in New York City. Related articles: “We Want To Read” On Kindle, Protesters Say
Huffington Post has compiled a list of powerful quotes from people who signed an online petition called We Want to Read, following Amazon's decision to allow the Authors Guild to disable the text to speech feature in its Kindle 2 e-book reader.
A coalition of disability groups is planning to picket outside the Authors Guild headquarters in New York Tuesday in criticism of Amazon's decision to let the authors and publishers disable the text-to-speech feature on its e-book reader.
Nine disability organizations are pressuring publishers and Amazon to make all books on the Kindle 2 book reader available in audio format to people with sight and reading disabilities.
People with disabilities aren't satisfied with the Kindle 2's accessibility and are petitioning Amazon to add talking menus and other voice prompts.
