Department of Justice says Kindles in classrooms denies blind students equal access

[thewayne]

"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

Comments

[anyeone]

As long as the class materials are also available in BRAILLE then I don't see a problem. A blind person can't read a REGULAR text book either.

This whole thing makes no sense to me. The only real advantage the students get having their books on kindle is that they are much lighter to lug around.

I love my Kindle, don't get me wrong, and I do think Amazon needs to fast-forward their blind-friendly features, but sheesh...

[deborak]

Oh, let's just poke everyone's eyes out for equality! >_<

I don't know how many more discrimination shakedowns I can ignore before I go postal.

[silveradept]

While it seems silly, they do have a point - if you're going to make your device accessible, you need to make all of it accessible, not just the things you want to make accessible.

Having played with the kindle some myself, I'm impressed that someone blind can use the device and its interface at all - there wasn't a whole lot of differentiation of various things on the book itself.