[gui-talk] Ray Kurzweil teams with Baker & Taylor on new E-book reader

[Hoffman, Allen]

James Pepper wrote:
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.

Response:  Its the elimination of the technicalities of content mark up
for non technical authors that is the trick.
If Word had this built in we would have much less of this discussion.


James Pepper wrote:
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.

Response:  Its worse than this.
If a format does not have the storage capacity for all the appropriate
mark up attributes to deliver accessibility, e.g. associating table
headers with cell data, then no conversion will really get the job done
either.

James Pepper writes:
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!

Response:  Yeah, but we have to give Adobe credit for including
read-outloud to read with the actual flow in the content.  it allows
proofing in an intuitive way--but time consuming.  This stuff needs to
be boiled down to a "spell check" for accessibility that works.  See Net
Centric technology's products for a good start on this.


James Pepper writes:
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.

Response:  Yeah, even NLS won't let you read their books on a computer,
you have to use the player.  

James Pepper writes:
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.

Response:  So where is the magic accessibility attribute button coming
from?  How do you provide alt text for graphical content without a
change to the authoring process?  How do you associate correct table
headers and cells without explicitly doing it?  How do you identify
header relationships automatically without either using a back-end
rule-of-thumb which can be wrong, or authoring it intentionally?


James Pepper writes:
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.

Response:  JAWS is not just a TTS on steroids.  It accepts inputs using
structured accessibility information, and unstructured information, and
presents to the user allowing for various selections of reading
preferences.  Only by including the screen reading function as a
component of the OS or platform will you eliminate the needs for
separate screen reader software--but with structured intentional
designed accessibility built-in, you can drastically lower the
complexity of the screen reader's back end requirements.


James writes:
The AFB is testing my process right now.

Response:  
What process?  
What test?  
What is the expected outcome?  
What are the obstacles to success?
What is the timeline?