Comments on: No Color Kindles for Years Might Mean No Kindles

By: Gene

Gene — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 07:00:34 +0000

A color Kindle because we live in a color world. Give me a break! I am visually impaired, and I am tire of seeing the market to fluff features in products which have nothing to do with brain activity and everything to do with being constantly entertained. Blind people don’t have any of these things, and we do fine. However, at the same time, we are constantly struggling to access consumer products released today because sighted consumers must have everything with scrolling menus and interactive, which means not usable to the blind. DVD players are a shining example of this problem. When a person loads a DVD, what happens, a screen comes up with music, and the screen is always different from DVD to DVD. Furthure more, music is all the person hears, so at what point does a blind person push the play button? But wait, where is the play button?

I can read my Kindle 2 with the font pushed all the way to the highest setting, plus I have the buttons. If Amazon releases the promised speech accessible firmware update to the Kindle to allow the totally blind to use the product, than it will be a good thing. But for how long? Based on what I read above, how long with it be before the Kindle is entirely touch screen based? So again, it is the same thing it is with almost all other products on the market, it will be designed to be entertaining for people with normal vision, but completely inaccessible to a totally blind person. I have enough vision to get by with the Kindle 2, but I don’t know another person in my position, I know there are some users out there like me, but I have never met them. Everyone else I know is totally blind and they are frustrated and angry because they understand what the potential of the ebook readers can be and what they allow a user to do now. I like so many other Kindle owners, love my Kindle 2, but at the smae time, I know there is nothing like it available for a totally blind person at this time.

Blindl people keep track of what is going on and what is available in terms of technology, but there is very little of it that they can fully access or for that matter access at all. Blind and visually impaired people want to be a part of the world we all like in, but find ourselves sitting on the side lines most of the time not allowed to join in.

Gene

By: Tarun Reddy

Tarun Reddy — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:32:35 +0000

Classics2Go (classics2goapp.com), a top 10 iPhone book app, has 40 classics for only $0.99. These books are beautifully formatted and have attractive cover art. We now have a new bookshelf feature that allows you to organize your collection by title or author. You can also add titles to the “My Books” bookshelf to track books currently being read. This app is a must for any iPhone user! For more information, visit http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=306469226&mt=8

By: tom b

tom b — Sun, 31 May 2009 01:51:17 +0000

I remember typewriter ribbons that came with two whole colors– black and red. It seemed pretty innovative at the time. Of course, people didn’t own full-color multipurpose devices, like computers– or iPhones– back then….

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:09:02 +0000

If they’re going to ‘replace’ newspapers and magazines, they need color. If they’re going to be an ‘upgrade’ over a traditional book, they need lighting.

By: John Baxter

John Baxter — Fri, 29 May 2009 20:10:02 +0000

Amazon doesn’t have to sell Kindles forever–they have to sell eBooks (OK, e-material) long term. Meanwhile, the Kindle is an engine which is deeply involved in creating the space.