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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."
How does the kindle discriminate against the blind any more than, say, A BOOK?
Ocean is land, covered with water.
So, all Amazon needs to do is add a text-to-speech feature, and then they can sue any school that tries to use paper books instead of the Kindle, because compared to a text-to-speech Kindle, paper devices discriminate against students with vision problems.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Okay, I do understand the technicalities regarding why they say the Kindle is not as accessible to blind students as it is to sighted students. But what I don't get is - how is it different from the status quo? Blind students can't read regular textbooks already. What is it we can do for them with a printed textbook that we can't do with an electronic textbook?
And don't bring up braille, since that is a separate edition that has to be produced (and is thus independent of whether the "normal" book is on paper or electronic).
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That Harrison Bergeron is a warning........not a fucking "how-to" manual.
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...is the capability of the lowest common denominator.
Braille doesn't provide much access to those with no arms.
THL phish sticks
The DOJ in the classroom hurts everyone.
Yes, let's limit EVERYONE because a select few can't use a new technology.
The blind have always needed special teaching tools (Braille, audio books, or someone to read for them), so this isn't like a step backward or anything.
I feel for the blind, and they should definitely be accommodated, but not using eBook readers where they could be beneficial to others is not a good idea.
"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.
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Clearly, the only way to be fair to the blind is to rip out everyone elses eyeballs so we're all equal. If no one can READ A BOOK or use a kindle than there will be no discrimination.
This is obviously a clear cut case of intentional discrimination against the blind, just like those evil bastards who invented the printing press.
Let me give you a hint. You're blind. You can not do the same things as people who aren't blind. It sucks, but thats just fucking reality. Stop expecting everyone else to cater to you. You make your own way in this world, start acting like you deserve a place in the world.
It could be a lot worse. If were were anything like ... oh ... every other living organism on the planet, the blind wouldn't live long enough to know what school ways, let alone bitch about not being able to use the device (kindle) that is replacing another device (traditional book) that you couldn't use either.
There is no discrimination, just some retards trying to get money for themselves by ranting about discrimination against a group of people. The only problem is, the thing doing the discrimination is nature and chaos, and they can't sue that.
So take away everyones eyes. Then we'll all support the blind better. We'll all be on a level FAIR playing field, and as a bonus, we'll never see another flash movie again. It makes total sense.
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As it stands right now, the Kindle doesn't have text-to-speech in the menu. Theoretically, if you can use the menu, you can use the Kindle (2 or DX, at least) to read to you using text-to-speech.
The thing is, Amazon has announced previously that they're working on enabling text-to-speech in the menu, so that particular issue will be moot (although I don't know what the timeline is). The bigger problem is that publishers can disable the text-to-speech in their e-books on the Kindle, which would render an accessible menu fairly pointless. (The same groups mentioned in the article also have been trying to pressure those publishers who have disabled it (e.g., Random House) to re-enable text-to-speech in their Kindle e-books.)
maybe they can force sighted students to wear blindfolds in class in future so that the blind have equal footing
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Chances are, it isn't that they got in trouble but are simply covering their rears against some idiot student expecting the professor to know that one of his 2,000 students is disabled and wants to sue because the professor doesn't have psycic powers.
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You're talking COMMON SENSE there. If you're not careful, the agents of PC and Government interference will show up and arrest you.
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I know no one reads the articles, as that would get in the way of the knee-jerking we all love to do. But the article makes it quite clear: the kindle includes a text-to-speech application, but no way for visually impaired folks to navigate. Therefore, the Kindle is not the right choice of e-book reader for institutions such as colleges and universities to promote. It is the Kindle that is unusable by the blind, not the e-books themselves.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
It can convert words to audio itself. Not necessarily
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It is illegal for a resident of Canada covered by Canadian health care (say, a citizen, or landed immigrant) to pay for health care, and illegal for a health care provider to charge if they are in the "voluntary" system (which covers 99%+ of the population who can not legally pay anyway) which effectively forces almost all providers to be "in" the system. (There are specialty private clinics catering to non-citizen athletes, etc.)
This is similar to the socialized medicine systems in Cuba and North Korea (but, not, for example, the U.K. and other places with "two tier" socialized health care systems).
The argument is exactly this: it is unfair for some to have what others do not, even if they can pay for it.
This has some interesting effects: When I displayed my American-born son's American passport, he was seen in the clinic ahead of any Canadians who were there ahead of him. See, non-covered persons must pay, and pay more than the clinic receives from the government, so they get first dibs while Canadians wait in line.
In Liberty, Rene
Attractive supermodels should be required by law to date just as many overweight computer geeks living in their mom's basement as rich, attractive, professional athletes. We're being discriminated against! Tiger Woods is getting more pussy than we do!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The problem isn't e-books or readers per-se. The Kindle even includes a text to speech application. But the Kindle lacks a way for visually impaired readers to navigate, and so, it is absolutely useless as it is. All that needs to be done is to tie the user interface into the text to speech application. That's it. Until that very, very simple problem is solved, colleges and universities are correct not to promote the use of this device. A good bit of publicity early on will ensure that all e-book readers in the future have this simple feature.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The Kindle was a lot better for visually impaired users until the Author's Guild did their dirty work to prevent the text-to-audio feature.
Yes, Amazon should make it easier to navigate but maybe positive pressure rather than lawsuits to prevent the feature would help speed that along.
I'm all for accommodating the disabled, however denying privileges to the able bodied because not everybody can participate is asinine. No matter what activity you select, there will be somebody unable to participate. Do what's best for 99% of people and then do your best to accommodate the remaining 1%.
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You didn't read the FA. The complaint is that the navigation menus etc are not included in the text-to-speech converter.
Infuriate left and right
As someone who has worked in higher ed providing technology for the disabled, I'm happy to see this. If you actually read TFA, you'll see the issue is that there's no text-to-speech in Kindle's menus, so the blind can't navigate the device.
I don't care. I have a tool that I can use, and I can use it. It's not right to hold someone back in the name of egalitarian principals. Saying that I cannot do something, because someone else cannot, is bullshit. Disability does not give you the right to oppress.
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1. Proves that our government is full of idiots.
2. Proves that blind people are frakkin' blind.
Does one thing, destroys any good will people have toward the handicap. Frankly, I see this, and I want to cut all funding to blind people and shout at them "YOU'RE !@#$% BLIND!"
Look, our society does a lot for the handicap, perhaps we can do more, and I am all for doing more where and when it's feasible. But you have to accept a certain extent of your handicap. So you're blind and you can easily navigate your Kindle. It's not like you can walk into Barnes and Noble and read all the books either. Deal!
It's harsh, yes. But when you take our goodwill and slam it in our face, don't be surprised if you get tossed to the roadside.
The real problem with this lies with the DRM.
I've knew two guys who copied their A4 books to A3 format; so they could read their materials anyways.
Break the DRM and blind people will be offered options to use textbooks as they want. Not like Amazon wants..
How freaky can it be to have a book, which you can't print or copy a page from, for further reference; in a SCHOOL?
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As a sighted person and a consumer of college texts, I hearby pledge to donate 1/4 of the difference between dead tree texts and e-book texts to developing a kick-ass text distribution/consumption capability for the disabled.
Seriously - how much end-user savings will this generate for the primary target audience?
I have a serious problem with DoJ denying the university the authority to use a particular technology and demand that the technology incorporate a particular feature set. ADA gives DoJ authority to require the university to provide a REASONABLE ACCOMODATION for those with disabilities that prevent their use of standard facilities/capabilities.
IMHO, requiring Amazon to change the feature set of their commercial product based on ADA for higher education is NOT a reasonable accomodation. The fact that they're big, capable, and that "they just need to abc xyz" is NOT a valid arugment for the reasonableness of the accomodation. Now I have a feeling the settlement actually said that the universities can't make the kindle (or similar device) mandatory until such time as they adequately support folks with disabilities (I'm assuming that's 508 compliance ). Which amounts to requiring Amazon to implement a broad feature set to support a fractionally sized community in order to get access to a large market.
So the precedent is now set - any disability community can leverage any public venue to pick the pocket of a large corporation and require them to accomodate their disability to gain access to the public venue. And the explicit leverage is that the majority of the inhabitants of the public venue will be locked out of the technology or innovation. OK - maybe that's abstract. But now it's a reality, with legal precedent.
Wasn't the point of Atlas Shrugged that if society lays too many burdens, obstacles, and demands on those actually producing (like Amazon...) that their ultimate recourse is to stop producing?
Maybe that's because publishers are, by default, disabling the text-to-speech function on their works. I'm annoyed with how many books I downloads on my kindle have text-to-speech disabled.
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