Posts by Islander
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O, and forget rofflenui-
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Sacha, a pa-in-f-ul-ly s-low o-n-us on part ice pants (got that once!)
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Possibly (tho' they are fairly ubiquitous among my kind of folk i.e VI wordwrights of one kind or another.) They would be a considerably greater percentage of users than those who would want to own Kindle-type machines(which are comparatively *very* limited)...o, and ultraportables/netbooks will be the new goodness...once a couple of wee detriments have been superceded.
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Mark, I think you under-estimate the ingenuity of visually-impaired people - and the portability of laptops.-
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Don -agreed. The NZ Digital Rights Forum is - a new kind of start (since it includes most parties.)
Sacha - spelling? SPELLING? No TTS I've so far encountered recognises a)Maori or b) any idiosyncratic useage - almost as bad as any Spellcheck...but, like voice-recognition systems, it is improving. For conventional English, I totally agree - correct spelling for the region makes a great difference- -
(I heed, Russell, but I rather think he knows very well what he is doing-)Craig: a rather large number of writers, here & overseas, are bothered by first, the Google saga, and now, the Kindle2 episode. And the latter is percieved as a battle really well worth fighting if only because we suspect there is much more in the pipeline.
Matters can only be clarified (for individuals, rights holders or not) by this kind of informed considered argument- I hadnt caught up with the full statement from the NFB, for instance. I found the comment that, because the Kindle uses visual controls, the blind culdnt use it anyway, slightly undermined him...
lest anyone get the wrong impression, I am all in favour of further developements that help visually-impaired people (well, I would be, wouldnt I?!) I just dont think - given other technology currently available, that the Kindle2 TTS function would help more than a very tiny -&wealthy- percentage of us.
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Thanks Russell.
However, most people I know with severe visual impairments already use a TTS function - on their computers. And the TTS function on the Kindle2 isnt disabled - at least I havent read/heard that it is - for pdfs and other downloadable stuff. Just for books until the rightsholder, author or publisher, reaches an agreement with Amazon. Which is what should've happened in the first place.I think of the attempts by Google and Amazon as initial skirmishing.
Will any copyright holder notice - or care -about what we're doing?
Uh, yes. And it'll be interesting to find out the next moves- -
Rights for talking books-for-the-blind, and transcrition into braille, are routinely given away with my books (as they are for most NZ works of fiction). Neither publisher nor self makes anything out of them. A TTS function of the Kindle2 - supposing I had sold e-rights- wouldnt've garnered publisher or self anything either. And, as someone who is vbisually impaired, I find your comment, Russell, just a tad offensive.
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Mark H -Bookman Beattie for a kickoff-
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*shudder* irn bru - sorry, I tried it, once, in Edinburgh.
But I'm pretty sure your pisstaking is enjoyed by us all! Cheers!