ePub is pretty ubiquitous. You're going to find it with pretty much all the online booksellers. Amazon pushes Kindle hard, but it's definitely not the only e-book format out there. They just try to make it seem as though it is. There are also a bunch of e-book format converters out there free and for a price that can do the job of converting particular formats. With different degrees of success of course. Some more accessible with jaws than others too.
-----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 9:17 AM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Fw: Introducing FreeKindleSoftwarewithAccessibility Features Here in lies the problem though. Not all electronic books are created equal in the site of the cyber gods. Kindle is a format not necessarily the same as other e-book formats. It is the old Betamax/VHS wars all over again. Same with Audio books. I am discovering that not all of our MP3 reading solutions, Victor Stream, Plextalk, Olympus DM4 so far tested give good access to all of the audio books they all claim to support. I expect the same is true with e-book readers. Is Epub the same format as Kindle? Are all titles available to ePub equivalent to those available to Kindle? Will we, the consumer ever actually get what we want or will we continue to accept and actually purchase what they, the providers insist we should have? And when will we, the blind, have access to the promise of universal accessibility that the printing press now four or more centuries ago gave seeing people who only needed to take the initiative to learn to read. The universality of binary 1s and 0s is being very deliberately subverted with the specific intent to limit who has access to written material. This is not the coincidental barriers of things like Adobe PDF but a deliberate restriction. Kindle will certainly hear from me on the subject but it is a message which requires far broader broadcast. This goes around and around and around. Tape was thought to kill the music industry then the cassette then the Internet. Video home equipment was going to kill the cinema and so Internet sharing and pirating while the movies make more money than ever before. ----- Original Message ----- From: "CrisMunoz54" <crismuno...@gmail.com> To: <jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com> Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 11:04 AM Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Fw: Introducing Free KindleSoftwarewithAccessibility Features There is a Firefox add-on called ePub reader that is Accessible with Jaws. I use it all the time to read ePub formatted e-books. I believe too that this works on the mobile browser application as well. So in theory, you could use it to read books on your mobile device. I haven't played with the mobile side of things, but you could always give it a shot. Also, all the Apple I-devices can read e-books with VoiceOver if you want to go that root. -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Eric Damery Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 7:29 AM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: Re: [JAWS-Users] Fw: Introducing Free Kindle SoftwarewithAccessibility Features Please, don't assume it works by our design. We have a different view on an application being accessible. The Kindle PC application (menu and dialogs) is accessible with the Screen Reader, the books themselves however, are not. The books (those which the publishers have allowed), are read using Text To Speech provided by Kindle. In the case of other books, the application is still accessible (menu and dialogs), but the books are not at all. The quality of this speech from the Text To Speech they provide and the lack of control leaves much to be desired. We have expressed to Amazon and Kindle, that screen reader users would like to use their screen reader for speech, Braille, and control of navigation. This current solution, while a commendable effort, is very misleading to say the least. For those of you try it out, I encourage users to try it and then point out your opinions to them directly. Regards, Eric -----Original Message----- From: jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com [mailto:jaws-users-list-boun...@jaws-users.com] On Behalf Of Dale Leavens Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 8:41 AM To: jaws-users-list@jaws-users.com Subject: [JAWS-Users] Fw: Introducing Free Kindle Software withAccessibility Features Here is a new and presumably Jaws accessible application. I would prefer a fully portable e-book reading device such as my sighted colleagues have available to them and will probably so inform them, I don't much fancy sitting at a computer for my recreational reading but there may be many on this list who will find this of interest and value. Dale leavens. ----- Original Message ----- From: Amazon.com Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 4:38 AM Subject: Introducing Free Kindle Software with Accessibility Features Dear blind-inter...@amazon.com subscriber, Amazon.com is releasing a new version of Kindle for PC that adds accessibility features designed for blind and low-vision customers. Kindle for PC with Accessibility Plugin is a free, downloadable application for your Windows PC. It provides the following accessibility features: text-to-speech reading with adjustable voice settings, voice-guided menu navigation, large font sizes, high contrast reading mode, keyboard navigation, and accessible shortcuts. With this software, for the first time ever, the entire collection of English language books in the Kindle Store can be read aloud. With over 750,000 English language titles, Amazon offers the largest selection of accessible ebooks. In order to use the text-to-speech feature, an external screen reader program must be installed and running on the Windows PC. The free download is available at www.amazon.com/kindle/accessibility. We welcome your feedback at kindle-pc-accessibility-feedb...@amazon.com. Sincerely, The Kindle Team © 2011 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Amazon, the Amazon a logo, the AmazonKindle logo, Kindle, and Whispersync are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Amazon.com, 410 Terry Avenue, North, Seattle, WA 98109. Reference: 18358260 Please note that this message was sent to the following e-mail address: dleav...@puc.net For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: jaws-users-list-ow...@jaws-users.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: jaws-users-list-ow...@jaws-users.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: jaws-users-list-ow...@jaws-users.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: jaws-users-list-ow...@jaws-users.com For answers to frequently asked questions about this list visit: http://www.jaws-users.com/help/ Send any questions regarding list management to: jaws-users-list-ow...@jaws-users.com