As many of you may know from my previous posts, the Text to Speech, or TTS feature on the Kindle 2 can be disabled if a publisher wants it to be. For almost three months now there has been no word of any publisher disabling the feature. Well, I am sad to report that that is no longer the case. As of May 12th, according to Knowledge Ecology, Random House has removed the TTS feature from at least 40 titles, and they may add more. The TTS feature can apparently be disabled remotely. This means that even if you've purchased a book, the TTS feature can be disabled at any time. In the words of my husband, this is like removing a chapter from the book after you've started reading it. I knew this day would come, but I am sad that it is here. The TTS feature isn't going to affect a publisher's profit in any significant way, and they are only hurting their readers by doing this.
On Tuesday I talked about how the new Kindle DX isn't accessible to the blind. It is, however, accessible to people with low vision and those with other print disabilities like dyslexia. The TTS feature for people with these disabilities can be a god send. The Kindle costs significantly less than other devices for people with print disabilities, and this TTS feature could open a whole new world to them. Apparently publishers don't care about this set of consumers. I urge all Kindle owners to complain about Random House's decision, especially if you've bought one of the titles that they've disabled the TTS feature on. I hope that their actions backfire and that they realize that you can't mess with consumers like this.
To read my other posts about the Kindle and TTS please visit:
The New Kindle DX is still not Accessible to the Blind
The Kindle 2 COntroversy: Amazon Gives In
The Kindle 2 COntroversy: Why the Author's Guild Wants to Prevent Progress
How do you feel about Random House disabling the feature? Do you think that the publishers should have the right to remove the feature remotely?
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Hi. I'm new to your blog so hopefully my comment will go through. But this is indeed very unfortunate. I don't own a portable mp3 player and have never owned one, but I am a firm believer in access for all. Removing TTS access in these mp3 players is a barrier and a step in the wrong direction. There's one more point I feel needs to be raised here. That is, our country's two "consumer advocacy" organizations, i.e., the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind, absolutely need to stop all their in-fighting and come to some sort of agreement, compromise or whatever. For instance, if the NFB demands accessibility features be built into mp3 players like the Amazon Kindle II, then why are they against accessibility features being built into videos and DVD's? It's the same exact thing: All we're asking for is a way to have access to the printed word.
ReplyDeleteI think you make some great points. I agree with you that the ACB and NFB need to learn to get along. Access is what the blind community needs on all levels.
ReplyDelete