<html>
<body>
<br>
<b>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br>
<br>
CONTACT:<br>
</b>Chris Danielsen<br>
Director of Public Relations<br>
National Federation of the Blind<br>
(410) 659-9314, extension 2330<br>
(410) 262-1281 (Cell)<br>
<a href="mailto:cdanielsen@nfb.org">cdanielsen@nfb.org</a><br>
<br>
<div align="center"><b>National Federation of the Blind Condemns Amazon’s
<br>
Push to Put Kindle E-books in Schools<br>
</b></div>
<br>
<div align="center"><b><i>Blind Americans Will Protest at Amazon
Headquarters<br>
</i></b></div>
<br>
<b>Seattle, Washington (December 4, 2012):</b> In protest of a recent
push by Amazon.com to put Kindle e-books,
<a href="https://nfb.org/images/nfb/video/misc_2012/kindle_on_ios-1.wmv">
which are inaccessible to blind students</a>, into K-12 classrooms across
the country, members and supporters of <a href="http://www.nfb.org">the
National Federation of the Blind</a> will conduct an informational picket
at the company’s headquarters on Wednesday, December 12. The action comes
on the heels of Amazon’s launch of Whispercast, a system designed to
allow teachers and school administrators to push Kindle e-books to
different devices, theoretically allowing the sharing of content among
devices brought to school by the students. Kindle content, unlike
some other e-book products, is not accessible to blind students, even on
devices that are themselves accessible to the blind, such as personal
computers and iPads. This is because Amazon makes Kindle content
available only to its own proprietary text-to-speech engine, if at all,
rather than to accessibility applications of the reader’s choice.
Furthermore, the limited accessibility features that Amazon has
implemented do not allow for the kind of detailed reading that students
need to do in an educational setting. Although the books can be
read aloud with text-to-speech, the student cannot use the accessibility
features of his or her device to learn proper spelling and punctuation,
look up words in the dictionary, annotate or highlight significant
passages, or take advantage of the many other features that Kindle
devices and applications make available to sighted students. Kindle
e-books also cannot be displayed on Braille devices, making them
inaccessible to blind and deaf-blind students who read Braille.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.nfb.org/marc-maurer-bio">Dr. Marc Maurer</a>,
President of
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/NationalFederationoftheBlind">the
National Federation of the Blind</a>, said: “Amazon has repeatedly
demonstrated utter indifference to the recommendations of blind Americans
for <a href="http://www.nfb.org/kindle-books">full accessibility of its
Kindle e-books</a> and failed to follow the best practices of other
e-book providers. Blind Americans will not tolerate this behavior
any longer. While we urge Amazon to correct the many obvious
deficiencies in its implementation of accessibility and remain willing to
work with the company to help it do so, we will oppose the integration of
these products into America’s classrooms until Amazon addresses these
deficiencies. Putting inaccessible technology in the classroom not
only discriminates against blind students and segregates them from their
peers, but also violates the law.” <br>
<br>
For more information on this important issue, please visit
<a href="http://www.nfb.org/kindle-books">www.nfb.org/kindle-books</a>
.<br>
<br>
The National Federation of the Blind needs your support to ensure that
blind children get an equal education, to connect blind veterans with the
training and services they need, and to help seniors who are losing
vision continue to live independent and fulfilling lives. To make a
donation, please go to <a href="http://www.nfb.org">www.nfb.org</a>.<br>
<b> <br>
<br>
<div align="center">###<br><br>
</div>
<br><br>
About the National Federation of the Blind<br>
</b>The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) is the oldest, largest,
and most influential nationwide membership organization of blind people
in the United States. Founded in 1940, the NFB advocates for the
civil rights and equality of blind Americans, and develops innovative
education, technology, and training programs to provide the blind and
those who are losing vision with the tools they need to become
independent and successful. We need your support. To make a
donation, please go to <a href="http://www.nfb.org">www.nfb.org</a><br>
<br>
<br>
</body>
</html>