Category: accessible Devices
It's supposed to have text-to-speech capability. Does anybody know anything about this?
No, what is it exactly?
What is Kindle?
Kindle is a machine from Amazon that lets you download and read books on it's screen. I'm not sure why people with vision would rather read from such a device rather than actually read the paper book, but whatever. Anyway. to answer the poster's original question, I recently read something about the new update, but the article didn't say anything about text to speech. I'd stick with the Victor Stream if I were going to invest in such a device. Even if the Kindle does have text to speech, it's just going to be a novelty. I'm sure it wasn't designed for blind people and will have a lot of problems for us since it's not made for us.
Yeah, agree with previous poster. Get a victor reader, and then buy an ebook or whatever.
Wow! that post sounded so...dumb. Sorry guys. I have a cold, and it appears to have stopped up my brain.
I found a story about the new Kindle 2 in the NY Times yesterday. If anyone's interested you can read it at...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/technology/personaltech/10kindle.html?8au&emc=au
There's also a blog about the new Kindle at...
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/live-blogging-amazons-kindle-20-launch/
Well, at the very least, it will be interesting to see what hapens. The idea of being able to read a book at the same time as a sighted person is interesting. I agree with Becky to some extent. The Stream is proven technology that works nicely for us. Its kinda like the talking IPod, if it is indeed accessible. Its great to see a mainstream company considering this option. I'm sure we all have hundreds of questions to ask, and only time and experience will give us the answers.
Lou
I haven't read up on it as much as I should but to me the significance of the anouncements is more that in order to be read on these "players" the books have to be in an electronic format of sorts and Amazon has promised to make all of their titles compatible with the device, meaning they will make an EBook of sorts of all their titles. If there is a way to harness this format or modify it somehow so that the book can be read by the blind, either make a device such as the Stream read it or thenew Daisy players like the Plextalk one, or give RFB&D access to it, or some other organization, this could be a huge step forward and give us access to a huge variety of books. I am especially excited about text books sold by Amazon, half my college time was spent trying to catch up and get books on tape or braille or electronic format weeks after classes started and then struggling to catch up. If I could get the necessary books from Amazon in a format I could utilize, even if not 100% at the same time as other students it'd revolutionize anyone's college experience (I'm obviously way done with college but thinking about masters may be, if the job market doesn't get better). That's what excites me about this player, rather than the device itself.