Amazon to upgrade Kindle with audible menus
updated 12:45 pm EST, Mon December 7, 2009
Kindles to get more blind-friendly features
Amazon on Monday announced it will bring new features to its Kindle 2 and Kindle DX e-book readers next year to make it more suitable for vision-impaired users. This will include an audible menu system that will let these users navigate to the books without assistance, which they can listen to thanks to the device's Read To Me text-to-speech feature. The company will also add a new font that's twice as big as the current largest font preloaded into the device.
The new features are scheduled for a release by the summer of 2010, and were prompted by the feedback Amazon received from its visually-impaired users and those who work with such individuals.
Its features give Amazon an edge over Barnes & Noble's Nook, which currently lacks text-to-speech and some other accessibility features.
Written by Monish K Bhatia
