While we're somewhat off topic, Wired had an interesting article out on Friday about how copyright owners are fighting a plan to release e-books for the blind. Could have impact on book readers of any flavor.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/blind_block/ CB Christina wrote: > The NFB had to push the release of their e-book reader to January > sometime. I personally would prefer Amazon to make their apps > accessible. Why can't they just make it so that it works with the TTS > already built in to the iphone and the mac? Then voiceover can just > read the books to us and it wouldn't matter if a publisher turned off > the TTS or not. Well, I do not understand the laws so maybe this is > illegal. However, I've heard that the NFB e-book reader will work > with voiceover so we can just use voiceover to read the books. This > is what I've heard so I do not know how true this is. I believe the > NFB e-book reader will have their own TTS built in as well but again, > I'm not positive on this. > > Christina > On Dec 8, 2009, at 2:25 PM, Scott Howell wrote: > > >> Esther, I can't recall who posted the info, but wasn't there also >> something the NFB was collaborating with to make books accessible as >> well? I can't recall if this was for Kendal books, NLS books or >> what. Does anyone know what the status of this iPhone app is as well? >> >> tnx >> On Dec 8, 2009, at 3:06 PM, Esther wrote: >> >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> I'm surprised that I haven't seen any mention on this list of >>> Amazon's >>> announcement that they will update the Kindle 2 and Kindle DX to >>> include an audible menu that will use text-to-speech and add new >>> large >>> fonts to better support vision-impaired users, and will implement >>> these changes in 2010. This has been covered in a few places since >>> yesterday. >>> >>> Here's the press release at Amazon: >>> >>> http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1362556&highlight= >>> >>> A few links to articles reporting on this: >>> • Yahoo (basically the news release) >>> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Blind-and-VisionImpaired-bw-2422175966.html?x=0&.v=1 >>> • Techflash (has some commentary from the NFB, student reaction, and >>> other description) >>> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/12/kindle_to_feature_new_tools_for_blind_visually_impaired.html >>> >>> and here's some of the older (November 2009) criticism of the >>> Kindle's >>> text-to-speech access from geek.com: >>> http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/kindle-dx-text-to-speech-access-criticized-20091111/ >>> >>> Cheers, >>> >>> Esther >>> >>> -- >>> >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >>> . >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en >>> . >>> >>> >>> >> -- >> >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >> Groups "MacVisionaries" group. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >> . >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en >> . >> >> >> > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
