The Kindle ebook Controversy: Will You Still Read Me When I'm 64?   Jack Kemp Recently, John Stossel took the US Government to task when a blind Arizona State U. student sued his school because the Amazon Kindle e-book they were using in a pilot program wasn't fully accessible to the vision impaired. Stossel stated: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/02/10/governments_increasing_power_threatens_freedom.html "When colleges innovated by having students use Kindle e-book readers instead of expensive textbooks, the Justice Department sued them, complaining that the Kindle discriminates against blind students." END OF QUOTE Looking a bit further into this matter, the four universities initially involved in the legal matter, one gets the rudiments of this case, namely that the current version of the Kindle doesn't technically allow all of its functions to be used or adapted by the visually impaired. Namely, the menu function works well for a sighted person using a Kindle as an audiobook, but cannot be used as a menu for visually impaired people. http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/13/justice-dept-settles-blind-students-v-kindle-controversy "Four universities have agreed they will not purchase, recommend, or promote use of the Kindle DX, or any other dedicated electronic book reader, unless the devices are fully accessible to blind students, according to the US Department of Justice. The agreements came after the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind, along with a blind student at Arizona State University, complained to the DOJ that use of the Kindle devices discriminates against students with vision problems. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits disability discrimination." END OF QUOTE Before I discuss the technicalities of ebook readers currently manufactured for the blind and visually impaired, there are two overriding arguments here. I'm no attorney, but it appears that the University broke an implied contract. The current Kindle was the main focus of the discrimination case, but Arizona State registered a blind student in a class where it did not provide him with access to all the tools needed to complete the course work, i.e., a "book" that he could access. Perhaps in a year or two working a Kindle will become common knowledge for volunteer and paid readers for the blind, but that doesn't help this Arizona State student right now in receiving the services he paid for when he registered for the class. The more complex meta-argument is that of the fallacy in the anti-Americans With Disability Act camp, that devices such as ebook readers for the blind and entrance ramps in stores for the disabled have no other use for the general public, that they are supposedly do not benefit any larger segment of the public and are an imposition on businesses. In fact, there are numerous other clients and customers who benefit from these adaptions to help the disabled. It is a false dichotomy. Years ago, I noted that in my local bookstore that a ramp for wheelchairs also is a way for parents, mostly mothers, to enter the store with a baby carriage or stroller, in many cases accompanied by more than one child. Anecdotal conversations with mothers who recall not being able to enter stores when their children were young confirm my conclusions. You are welcome to do your own survey. The customer can shop and their children can urge additional purchases, ("Mommy, buy me this!") at the same time. Also, people who have fallen ill can benefit from the wheelchair ramp by having ambulance crews wheel them outside on a stretcher with greater ease. When small children and infants are taken into account, the population segment helped is greatly increased. When travelers and business people engaged in commerce who carry wheeled suitcases and wheeled laptop bags are considered, the general population benefiting from these ramps - and the ones built into street corners - grows larger. The physically handicapped in need of an entrance ramp also include veterans of both recent and long ago wars, many of them injured in the service of their country - and they don't always shop alone. To attempt to reduce this to an either-or, "capitalists vs. statists" Disabilities Act argument, is to overlook many dimensions of this issue and many other people involved. In the case of the visually impaired, when the government mandated that the Amazon Kindle and other ebook devices be accessible to the vision impaired, Mr. Stossel and others did not take into account the issue of a larger population and market for full function talking ebooks: senior citizens who can't read the small type they used to - and can't always carry heavy books as in their past, as well as wounded veterans. This is, once again, not an either-or, "capitalists vs. statists" argument, even if some want to attempt to reduce it to that for expediency. My late father, a non-computer user who was born before 1920, used to benefit from my enlarging news article's text for him either at websites that had that capability or by my copying the stories to a new file where he would read them in 12 or 16 point type, often boldfaced. We would later print them out the stories for distribution to his fellow senior friends in Florida with the same limited vision. The young techies at Kindle who can still read 10 point type with ease will have, either today or tomorrow, parents, grandparents - and themselves - all having the same limitations on their range of vision. There are a number of people today entering their 60s and 70s who are cell phone users (one sees them in public places quite often) and would adapt to an enhanced Kindle device for the visually impaired with greater ease than my late dad. Some of you may be thinking, "Who wants a bunch of seniors as customers? They need a lot of hand holding." Is the business environment that good today that one can turn away a new population of customers? Have you ever seen a senior refused to be sold a cell phone in your local stores? Going on to the technicalities of ebooks and other devices that aid the visually impaired, New York City's Baruch College has one of the oldest and most famous computer centers for the visually impaired, dating from the late 1970's. The Baruch Computer Center for Visually Impaired People (CCVIP) http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/ccvip/ Their website has a recent online video in which their staff, many of them blind, give detailed information on the latest ebook readers, one free from the government and two commercial products - all of which have a talking menu. It is entitled "Accessible eBook Readers," takes 100 minutes to completely view and/or hear, and the link is  http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/dml/engine.php?action=viewAsset&mediaIndex=1106  This online video makes it clear that the technology the government demanded to be built into the Amazon Kindle before it became the college standard etextbook reader has already been invented and implimented by others. A second recent online video lecture from Baruch's Visually Impared Computer Lab entitled "Accessibility in Apple Products," takes 91 minutes to view or hear and its link is  http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/dml/engine.php?action=viewMedia&source=category&mediaIndex=1059&listPlace=1&rootCategory=142&genreFilter=0&typeFilter=0  Here it clearly states that a standard late model Apple computer or iPod or iPhone, with their built-in Voiceover software, solves many or all of these ebook menu problems mentioned in the Kindle case, even without some software and hardware guru outside of Apple inventing an aftermarket add on device for the visually impaired. The new iPad with its iBook reader won't be on the market for weeks or longer, I was informed at Apple's New York flagship store on Fifth Avenue. There will also soon be an advanced iPad STK model which will facilitate the creation of aftermarket add ons by software and hardware gurus outside of Apple for any number of products, probably some to aid the vision impaired. The Americans With Disabilities Act focuses on smaller groups in need - yet the rest of the population has larger segments whose needs mirror those of the disabled. The National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 focused on military needs to overcome legal objections, yet it created a system of roads for commerce as well as military transport. It is not wise to focus on the narrow legal wording of a bill to even more narrowly define its impact on the Nation. In a real way, equipment developed for the disabled has spurred creative efforts for new products for larger segments of the population. In a simpler legal and technological time, a teacher of the deaf named Alexander Graham Bell attempted to invent a "telegraph for the deaf." We know this device as the telephone. Today's voice recognition software, which types text on a computer screen, is not only for those with severe arthritis, but those that have to enter a large number of words into a file. An ebook that can plug into large monitors has value for lecture halls and corporate training and presentations, not just for the visually impaired. The "Us vs. Them," Free Market vs. Government Mandate argument against the Kindle ebook reader is truly based on a false dichotomy. Wiser heads will turn it into a Win-Win situation.