Will the Amazon Kindle 2 work for blind and visually impaired? While I obviously haven't gotten my hands on the actual Amazon Kindle 2 yet, I can say that YES, the Amazon Kindle 2 will work for persons who are blind and visually impaired.
Amazon Kindle 2 has a new text to speech feature! This is great news for blind persons and those with vision impairments. It's about time Amazon provided a text to speech feature on the Kindle 2! Many people who are blind or visually impaired have been waiting for text to speech on the Kindle for a long time. So, thanks Amazon, for the text to speech feature on the Kindle!!!!!
In conclusion, I am so excited to be able to tell readers of the Talking Books Librarian blog that yes, it looks like the Kindle 2 will work for you! I would love to hear more from anyone out there who is purchasing a Kindle 2, especially in regard to the text to speech feature, and how it's working for you!
Click here to see the Amazon Kindle 2!
8 comments:
Hi! The text to speech feature is experimental which means Amazon may discontinue it in the future. If a reader needs this feature, the Kindle 2 may not a good long-term investment for him or her. Amazon removed the Now Now feature which was experimental on Kindle 1.
Where did you hear the text to speech feature is experimental with Kindle 2? I have not seen this information anywhere. A source for this information would be much appreciated!
Thanks for the comment!
It's in the Kindle 2's User Guide:
"You can also choose to turn on the experimental application, Text-to-Speech, which will read
aloud your books, newspapers, blogs, and personal documents." - pg.11
"Your Kindle can read aloud your books, newspapers, blogs, and personal documents with the
Kindle Experimental application, Text-to-Speech." pg.52
"Based on your feedback, we may add or remove content from the
Experimental page, so let your thoughts be known." pg. 80
You can view the user's guide by visiting the Kindle 2's page and clicking "Kindle 2 User's Guide"
The url is: http://s3.amazonaws.com/kindle/Kindle2_Users_Guide.pdf
Thanks for your response. I did some more research and learned that Amazon specifically addresses this concern, and states that they have NO PLANS to remove any experimental features on the Kindle 2. See link below for more details:
Experimental Features Will Not Be Removed on Kindle 2
Click on the "Why are Some Features Experimental link" from that page. That page states, "We have no plans to remove the experimental features—in fact, we are working hard to make them even better for you."
I am thinking about buying my husband, who is totally blind, the Kindle 2 because it takes hours trying to scan one book. I watched a demo on You Tube that showed it reading the book but had anyone (blind) tried navagating with it and able to successfully shop and download etc? I would like to know before spending the money on it.
I am not aware of any reviews of Kindle 2 by people who are blind, most likely since no Kindle 2's have been shipped yet. Once Kindle 2's have begun to ship, I expect to see more such reviews being released.
Is your husband signed up for the free talking books program through the Library of Congress (see link on the right side of this blog)? They will soon be offering digital players, which is very exciting for patrons!!! There is also a digital download project / BARD, where you can purchase your own digital player, such as the Victor Reader Stream, and download books directly to it.
How do we know that the navigation is going to include text-to-speech? I would love to get excited over this, but unless we actually are assured the ability to navigate with the text to speech, I don't see it helping much.
I don't think anyone really knows much about the navigation yet, or will, until after the Kindle 2's have started shipping, and people actually have them in their homes / start using them. As I learn more about navigation, I'll try to share it here on Talking Books Librarian blog. Thanks for the question!
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