The Amazon Kindle is an e-reader that has the potential to gain a lot of ground if universities turn to electronics rather than expensive textbooks.
But this week, the National Federation of the Blind announced that
two universities would not buy the devices unless the Kindle can make the "read aloud" functions easier for blind students to use.
The Associated Press reported that according to the federation,
the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Syracuse University won't consider big rollouts of the electronic reading device without more tweaking from Amazon:
"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.
"... 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."
This week, Intel introduced a pricey e-reader that the company says can
read books to the blind and to those with learning disabilities such as dyslexia.
