[gui-talk] Ray Kurzweil Teams with Baker & Taylor on New eReader Software

[James Pepper]

The problem here is that this will still require publishers to turn all of
their content into a new format and you will still have to edit the entire
document again, after it is made.  This is the reason that books are not
made accessible.

To solve this problem you have to make content once that is accessible to
all as it is made without the author knowing how to make content
accessible.  They just make the content and it is done.

Each of the E-book technologies are a different format, DAISY and the
various PDF variations (including Kindle) require an extensive re-editing of
the content and this sounds like it is the same situation where you have the
original book and you have to convert it to a format to be
accessible. Editors do not want to do the extra work and it is quite
extensive, if you do not edit a document correctly, the content will not
show up in the new format and those costs are extensive. Hence the
resistance to accessibility by the publishers.

For instance we saw Microsoft come out with its DAISY format for Microsoft
Word which implied that all you had to do was save the document using the
SAVE as DAISY button.  But if that document was not reformatted properly,
when you push the button, content would be lost.  You would not notice the
content being lost unless you actually tested the document and nobody does
that, they just assume everything went well because usually the first few
paragraphs will make the conversion and also most people never actually use
screen readers or even the free daisy players, they just follow the
directions and assume everything went right!

Will the publishers have the ability to maintain their rights to their books
under this platform?  It is their books, they have a right to sell them.  Or
is this another free format where you need a special player to maintain the
publishing rights?

Then you get this portability problem.  Why get a Kindle when all you really
need is a mini computer to read the books and do everything else.  People
all got caught up in the novelty of a book reader without realizing it is
just a one function mini computer with a black and white screen.  A sucker
is born every minute!
The solution for accessibility is to have a platform where people make
documents accessible as they are being made.  Where the author does not know
they are making the content accessible, they are just making their
content.

So when publishers sell books they are already formatted for accessibility
without any further activity. And the publisher can encrypt these documents
and maintain their rights to them without having to use any special format
because this can be integrated into existing software, across
platforms.   Accessibility is built into the document from the start so you
do not need to add anything later. You do not have to know the rules of
accessibility, you just author the document as you would today.

All you need to read content is a text to speech engine in any
language.  And by using any text to speech engine, this means that there is
no added cost to the blind and it can be done in any language. This would
also cause some competition to JAWS, so you would not run into the security
problem that JAWS just announced because accessibility would be turned to a
relationship between Braille manufacturers and software companies without
the middle man.

The AFB is testing my process right now.

James Pepper

 "Aqaba is over there, it is just a matter of going!" - T. E. Lawrence