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Schools Shun Kindle Due to Lack of Accessibility to the Blind

by Caleb Johnson on November 12, 2009 at 03:55 PM

Despite a function on the Kindle that reads text aloud, two universities and an advocacy group for the visually impaired adopted a staunch anti-Kindle stance Wednesday. According to an Associated Press report, the University of Wisconsin - Madison and Syracuse University won't invest in more electronic readers for college students because the audio feature is too difficult for a visually impaired person to activate. To engage the feature, a user must navigate a series of onscreen menus -- a process requiring a degree of sightedness that many of the United States' 1.3 million legally blind simply don't have.

A spokesman for the National Federation of the Blind applauded the schools' efforts. "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'," Chris Danielsen told the Associated Press. With such strong words, it's no wonder that universities aren't ready to invest in the burgeoning e-book market. But Amazon.com, Inc. spokesman Drew Herdener said he hopes to change that. The company is working on improving the Kindle so that everybody can easily use it. Just how that'll happen, though, remains unclear.

For the record, we're rooting for the Kindle. Take it from former college students, the potential of having cheaper, digital textbooks is enough to make a starving student's mouth water. [From: Associated Press, via Newsvine]

Tags: accessibility, amazon, blind, books, college, ebook, ereader, kindle, reading, school, top, university

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