Posts Tagged ‘ amazon ’

I garnered some First Impressions of the New Kindle DX from the NYTimes’s Gadgetwise Blog. According to the post, the new Kindle DX‘s main feature is its larger size. The DX has a 9.7-inch display, which the company says is 2 1/2 times the size of the Kindle 2. But the device doesn’t feel...
Read More »

Spotted on The Mac-cessibility Site, Anazon’s Kindle team is working on some accessibility improvements. The main focus seems to be on voice feedback during navigation. The lack of an audio interface meant that the Kindle text-to-speech feature, Talk to Me, would not be accessible to blind users without the help of a sighted person....
Read More »

Spotted today on Slashdot, Amazon Releases iPhone Kindle Software. “The Amazon Kindle 2 just started shipping last week, but Amazon surprised everyone late on March 3rd by placing the Amazon Kindle software for the iPhone in the Apple App Store. With the Whispersync technology you can now keep your Kindle and iPhone ebooks in...
Read More »

An Open Letter to Jeff Bezos at Amazon Does Amazon have a Chief Accessibility Officer? Someone who oversees accessibility issues across the company? It does not seem so. With Amazon at the heart of both online shopping and digital books (audio and e-books), you need a strong corporate position on accessibility. Not only is...
Read More »

A peeition to Make the Kindle 2 Fully Accessible has been started. We, the undersigned, ask Amazon Technologies, Inc., and its affiliates, to modify the new Kindle 2, and add the ability to have all menu choices spoken with voice prompts, so that all blind and sighted individuals may purchase, and make full use...
Read More »

Today Amazon announced that it was surrendering to the Author’s Guild – Amazon Backs off Text-to-Speech Feature in Kindle – Bits Blog – NYTimes.com. The new Talk To Me feature, a form of text to speech, in Amazon’s Kindle will be disabled at the whim of the publisher. How many publishers will not exercise...
Read More »

Following up on my rant against the Blount Op-Ed piece, the AFB has a well-written (much better than mine) blog post on the same issue: Kindle sparks a flame war, but fails to light the fire for accessibility – AFB’s Blog. While the Kindle offers text-to-speech options, it doesn’t include talking menus or fully...
Read More »

The brouhaha over the new Kindle’s text-to-speech function possibly violating copyright has really caught fire. The issue hit the papers as well as the blogosphere. The Wall Street Journal carried the sotry with New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir. Several fellow accessibility blogs have picked up the issue. The Talking Books Librarian asks...
Read More »

Spotted on Slashdot, Author’s Guild Says Kindle’s Text-To-Speech Software Illegal. “The Author’s Guild claims that the new Kindle’s text-to-speech software is illegal, stating that “They don’t have the right to read a book out loud,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. “That’s an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law.”...
Read More »

Last week, Google announced that its Book Search would be available for iPhone and other mobile device users. I like to read, so I thought I would see how it works and how accessible it is. I looked at another e-book reader, Stanza, in an earlier post, so I will look at the differences....
Read More »

The NY Times, along with every other news source, is reporting on the new version of Amazon’s e-book reader, the Kindle.Buried among all the other changes is one important accessibility feature: text-to-speech. According to the Times: Giving Voice to the Kindle: The Kindle 2 also has text-to-speech built in. “Any book, blog, magazine or...
Read More »

Microsoft’s Comfort Optical 3000 Mouse allows the user to zoom in on the cursor with the click of a mouse button. Although, I have not tried it yet, it seems like a great little feature for visually-impaired users. I am quite happy with my wireless Logitech mouse. It is quite configurable, so I could...
Read More »

I have begun compiling a list of books (and DVDs if there are any) by and/or about blind photographers. Blind Photographers, named for the flickr group for visually-impaired photographers, currently only has four titles, including Seeing Beyond Sight and Shooting Blind. Please check it out. PS Let me know if you have any additions....
Read More »

I am creating an Amazon Listmania list, Lov Vision Gadgets, for all those nifty little things that I fund unexpectedly helpful as a visually-impaired person. This is not a list for those expensive low vision aids. Instead, I want to highlight items not marketed for the visually impaired, but are still quite useful. The...
Read More »