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Originally Posted by Phantom-Rose
But what are the circumstances behind the Universities' implementation of this program? Are they requiring of students or is it voluntary?
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The problem was that sighted students were theoretically able to receive study materials, immediately, that the blind student may not be able to access. E.g. the prof sends out a couple of PDF's, or some texts on the ebook that the blind student can't navigate or won't be able to access in a timely fashion.
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Originally Posted by Phantom-Rose
I personally fall somewhere in the middle & being an avid reader & ereader owner (ever-faithful to my Sony), I can say that ebook readers & reasonable accommodation should be natural allies.
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Yes, they should. To meet that goal, Amazon is apparently working on firmware that allows TTS in menus, a new larger font size, and other accessibility features. To their credit, Amazon seems to be the only ebook reader company I know of that is directly working on this; B&N for example has explicitly stated they are not interested in TTS. (Not sure how tablets will fit in though.) However, even increasing font sizes isn't enough for some individuals, as I'm sure you must realize.
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Originally Posted by Phantom-Rose
I think the real reason the ACB & other groups are pissed is because they are losing money...
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Incorrect. The parties to the lawsuit have clearly indicated that their goal is to push Amazon to increase the TTS capabilities of the devices. I expect that once the new firmware is out, the pilot programs can resume without incident.
I concur that a lawsuit wasn't the best way to proceed, but hopefully with the suits ended, once the TTS abilities are increased there won't be a problem.