text-to-speech
KEI Statement on Random House decision to turn off text to speech in ebooks
Submitted by James Love on 19. May 2009 - 1:00"KEI is disappointed that Random House is turning off text to speech in Kindle 2 ebooks. In a world where access to knowledge is central to everything, Random House certainly understands this action will isolate and marginalize many persons with reading disabilities. Contracts that prohibit the use of assistive technologies like text to speech should not be enforceable."
James Love, Director, Knowledge Ecology International,
http://www.keionline.org
+1 (202) 332 2670, james.love@keionline.org
For more background on this dispute, see:
Kindle 2 vs Reading Disabled Students
Submitted by Meredith Filak on 13. May 2009 - 16:25Update #2, 15 May: Yesterday, Random House began to disable TTS on books in the Kindle store, which is our primary concern. However, it appears that early reports from the Amazon message boards of remote disabling may have been inaccurate; there have been no confirmed reports of TTS being remotely disabled, and we apologize for any confusion. However, the technology to remotely disable these works does exist, and this remains a significant concern.
Two major points to bear in mind as this story progresses:
