Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

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Fighting Accessibity Weaseling by Amazon et al, Victory!

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last September, I wrote a Beneblog post: Objecting to Accessibility Weaseling , about Amazon and other ebook reader makers trying to dodge out on making their devices accessible. a11y accessibility Amazon blind Bookshare ebooks FCC Kindle NFB' This is an update on that fight.

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The Struggle for Book Access: Amazon (Blog Post #2)

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

But, we just saw Amazon fold when the Authors Guild pushed them to turn off the voice of these books: Amazon to flip on Kindle. We have an action by Amazon that sets back years of work to make ebooks accessible. Print-disabled people of the world shouldn't be surprised that Amazon isn't going out of its way to help them.

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Fake Facebook Friends and the CIA

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

I'm ok with Amazon hosting sensitive data for us because I know that we encrypt that data so that Amazon can't be pressured into giving up anything more than encrypted (scrambled) lumps of data.

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Objecting to Accessibility Weaseling

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Last week, the National Federation of the Blind and 22 organizations serving people with disabilities filed detailed objections to a petition from a group of makers of e-reader devices led by Amazon to be exempted from accessibility requirements under the relatively new Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.

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NFB and Amazon.com on Accessibility

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

My impression was that this advocacy was linked to the Target department store lawsuit, because Amazon does the technical work behind the Target website, which has been inaccessible. The speech itself was pretty basic: Amazon cares about its customers above all else, and so accessibility is important.

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Bookshare without Borders: #2/3

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

Aiming at the revenue potential of these growth markets, the main international players in the world of digital content distribution – such as Amazon, Apple and Google – are racing to enhance their platforms with non-English content. Spanish publishing is one of the hottest digital battlegrounds.

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The Struggle for Book Access (Blog Post #1)

Beneblog: Technology Meets Society

I’ve been watching with interest the legal controversy over the synthetic speech capability of the new version of the Amazon Kindle, such as the coverage on Boing-Boing entitled Author's Guild claims text-to-speech software is illegal. years ago entitled the Soundproof Book. More on that in another essay. Another key argument is distribution.