[Missouri-l] Schools Shun Kindle:

[Nancy Lynn]

 Schools shun Kindle, saying blind can't use it
>
> By RACHEL METZ (AP) - 5 hours ago
>
> SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind
> it
> can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two
> universities
> say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.
>
> The National Fed
eration of the Blind planned to announce Wednesday that
> the
> University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University won't consider big
> rollouts of the electronic reading device unless Amazon makes it more
> accessible to visually impaired students.
>
> Both schools have some Kindles that they bought for students to try this
> fall, but now they say they won't look into buying more unless Amazon
> makes
> changes to the device.
>
> "These universities are saying, `Our policy is nondiscrimination, so we're
> not going to adopt a technology we know for sure discriminates against
> blind
> students,'" said Chris Danielsen, a spokesman for the National Federation
> of
> the Blind.
>
> Amazon.com <
http://amazon.com/>
Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener said many
> visually impaired customers have asked Amazon to make the Kindle easier to
> navigate. The company is working on it, he said.
>
> According to the National Federation of the Blind, there are about 1.3
> million legally blind people in the U.S. Many more people have other
> disabilities such as dyslexia that make it difficult to read.
>
> The Kindle could be promising for the visually impaired because of its
> read-aloud feature, which utters text in a robotic-sounding voice. For
> blind
> students in particular, the Kindle could be an improvement over existing
> studying techniques - such as using audio books or scanning books page by
> page into a computer so character-recognition software can translate it
> for
> a text-to-speech program.
>
> But activating the Kindle's audio feature probably requires a sighted
> helper, because the step involves manipulating buttons and navigating
> choices in menus that appear on the Kindle's screen.
>
> The federation says the device should be able to speak the menu choices as
> well.
>
> Electronic books still make up a small portion of the overall book market,
> but it's a fast-growing segment. In hopes of getting even more people to
> try
> the Kindle, Amazon released the $489 Kindle DX this year, which has a
> large
> screen and is geared toward textbook and newspaper readers. The company
> then
> worked with several colleges to give out Kindles this fall with digital
> versions of their textbooks on them.
>
> The Federation for the Blind sued one of the schools that participated in
> this pilot program - Arizona State University - in June, along with the
> American Council of the Blind and a blind ASU student, arguing it was
> discriminating against blind students. That case is ongoing.
>
> The group also filed complaints with the Department of Justice against
> five
> other schools that are participating in the Kindle trial with Amazon.
> Wisconsin and Syracuse are not among those schools.
>
> Ken Frazier, director of Wisconsin-Madison's library system, said the
> library bought 20 Kindle DX devices for use in a history class this fall.
> Though he's not sure how many blind students are at his school, he said
> many
> students have difficulties reading texts for various reasons, such as
> learning disabilities.
>
> "Our experience is that when you make technology accessible, everybody
> benefits," he said.
>
> Copyright (c) 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.