The £1,500 eReader

VentureBeat review gave us something to think about, the $1,500 digital reader from Intel.

We automatically think is this like comparing apples and oranges , or eInk lookie likies with netbooks or elusive tablets?

The chunky device is not aimed at the average reader but millions who have eyesight problems and need something more suited to their needs. The market is huge but so is the challenge of getting adoption to a device that is aimed at being a reader of all matter; books, t a restaurant menu, a timetable, or a web site. It has a 5-megapixel digital camera that can capture text and read it back. It can read text in the DAISY format, plain text, as well as play other formats such as MP3 music files. The issue is capturing the text as that may sound simple to many but as a task may itself be daunting to some with sight challenges.

An optional book scanning system, the Intel Portable Capture Station, enables users to digitize books with ease, but again why not sort the problem at source and in particular digitize more books and create more audio books for this sector?

Here’s a video of the Intel Reader in action:



I asked my mother in law what she thought of the idea given she is a book lover, an author of some 34 published novels and a winner of woman of the year as she is registered blind. She says she has been shown a similar device that cost £450 but that she only wanted it for the portability but when out she finds it more enjoyable and sociable to get someone to read things such as menus out to her. She also found she just couldn’t be bothered to ‘faff around’ when she is out. She does a lot of reading at her desk, but has a auto focusing camera and scanner set-up which she uses and I will vouch for that even when the images are huge with the characters 6” high! She also has a total PC environment that works 100% on voice recognition.

So there is a need and these devices are as important as others but we must ensure we compare apples with apples.

WIPO to Consider Radical Changes To Support the Visually Impaired

A committee of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has agreed on "facilitating the access of blind, visually-impaired and other reading-disabled persons to copyright-protected works." A proposed t would effectively change copyright laws to allow the supply of books across borders for the benefit of blind people.

According to the World Blind Union (WBU) around 95% of books are estimated to be never published in any format other than standard print. So rendering many 'print disabled'. The new draft treaty would effectively relax copyright restrictions and allow the creation and supply of accessible books without the need for prior permission from the copyright owner on a non-profit basis. Since 2002 the UK Copyright (Visually Impaired Persons) Act, has made this legal in the UK. However the law is limited to visually-impaired persons and does not allow the supply of a digital book to a customer overseas.

The treaty, if signed and ratified would protect all 'reading disabled' persons and it allows the supply across borders of accessible works, as a Braille hard copy or as an e-book. This would enable an accessible version of a book in the UK available to send that to another English-speaking country where they don't have the resources to make books accessible.

Provided copies are supplied exclusively for disabled customers the proposed treaty would also allow for the circumvention of digital rights management (DRM). The WIPO copyright committee has agreed to discuss the treaty at its next meeting in November and its supporters are confident it will make progress

Hachette Embraces Bookshare

Producing books for the visually impaired has always been difficult as they needed special large print, Braille or an audio edition and these were often not available. It is estimated that fewer than five percent of the books needed by people in the US with print disabilities are currently available in accessible formats.

However, today’s digital world should help change that in a number of ways, making a good read available to all. Bookshare, the largest online library for this community with more than 43,000 books and 150 periodicals, have pursued this belief and ensured that people with disabilities get the same ease of access to books and periodicals that people without disabilities enjoy. Today the Bookshare library provides legal access for it 47,000 members to Braille, large print or synthetic speech titles.

Bookshare members download books, textbooks and newspapers in files protected by its DRM and members can read the texts using adaptive technology, such as text-to-speech software or enlarged font, or hardware devices that allow the book to be read on refreshable Braille displays or print the digital books as embossed Braille.

Now Bookshare and the Hachette Book Group (HBG) have entered into a partnership to provide digital books for the Bookshare library with Hachette having agreed to donate 1,700 currently digitized frontlist and backlist titles and also refer all customer service requests for accessible books to Bookshare for fulfillment.

We commend Hachette in this move and suggest that it becomes a route taken by all as they digitise their works and in doing so helps remove the stigma of disabilities and allows everyone to enjoy books.