This is a timely post by Bufo Calvin. A lot of people, myself included, were disappointed when the list of features on the new Kindle Voyage ereader made it clear that it would NOT include text-to-speech (TTS) access. It is clear from many of the forums I read that the TTS function is a feature that many Kindle owners still want.
Who is still blocking text-to-speech access?
A Kindle with text-to-speech access can use software to read aloud any text downloaded to it…provided that the ability to do that is not blocked by the publisher inserting code into the file which prevents it.
I haven’t written much about this in a while (although it still comes up), but it is an important issue to me. I believe that blocking the access disproportionately disadvantages the disabled. Personally, I don’t get books which have the access blocked, and I don’t intentionally link to books with the access blocked in the blog (I don’t want to give the publisher money on books where that decision has been made, and I don’t want to benefit from it by people clicking on the link in my blog).
However, I do believe this is a personal decision, and there are good arguments for supporting the author by…
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The eBook Evangelist 