US DOJ Says Kindle In Classroom Hurts Blind Students

angry tapir writes "Three US universities will stop promoting the use of Amazon.com's Kindle DX e-book reader in classrooms after complaints that the device doesn't give blind students equal access to information. Settlements with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Oregon, were announced Wednesday by the US Department of Justice. The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind had complained that use of the Kindle devices discriminates against students with vision problems."

Comments

Hmm, this seems illogical.

[tivoKlr]

How does the kindle discriminate against the blind any more than, say, A BOOK?

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a partially sighted person[1] I'm trying to figure this out...hang on...um...uh..nearly there...uh...no.

Nope sorry, no idea. Still I'm sure The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind are patting themselves on the back for holding back the majority of students while in no way impacting any partially sighted or blind student in any way what-so-ever. Good for them!

[1]: I have partial sight in my right eye due to several holes in my retina, one of which is directly in the center of my vision.

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[maxume]

I have this notion that electronic copies of books might even be more accessible, as there is no need to do any OCR; I guess if the students in question are already used to using some system that isn't compatible...

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[davester666]

None of the university e-books have text-to-speech enabled for them, in order to preserve the jobs of human text to speech convertors.

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[mabhatter654]

exactly, see here!

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/02/28/0127236/Amazon-Caves-On-Kindle-2-Text-To-Speech

The DOJ didn't exactly stick up for Amazon when they enabled text-to-speech by default for all Kindle books.... Now they claim they can't use them because it's "unfair" to blind people.... Blind people can't read EVERY book without help.... kindle make it cheaper for the rest of us to have materials. There are SPECIAL programs and credits to convert material for blind people that schools are supposed to offer... not turn off stuff for the rest of us!!

Re:Hmm, this seems illogical.

[MikeFM]

Blind users should sue publishers that disable text to speech. They are the bastards to blame.

Somebody please tell the DOJ

[Vinegar Joe]

That Harrison Bergeron is a warning........not a fucking "how-to" manual.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

Re:Amazon should love this precedent

[m.ducharme]

So, all Amazon needs to do is turn back on the text-to-speech feature...

Lowest Common Denominator mentality

[syousef]

"If you can have it and I can't I'll sue" - Pretty soon kids are lucky to have access to food and clothing, let alone an education. It's a losing strategy compared to say innovating and catering to diversity. Why can't they lobby for an ebook reader that does cater to the blind. Perhaps popup braile? Instead of wasting effort sending all your kids minds back to the stone age. Doesn't have to be a Kindle either. Leave the brand names out of it.