Amazon's New Kindle Brings Back Accessibility for the Blind

Amazon Inc. announced a thinner, lighter entry-level Kindle e-reader on Wednesday. Yet the biggest new feature turns out to be the return of accessibility for blind readers.

In earlier days, Kindles had speakers, headphone jacks and text-to-speech functionality that could help readers who have trouble seeing text. But the fourth-generation Kindle Touch, which came out in 2011, was the last of these. As Amazon ramped up its LCD-screen Fire tablets, it removed audio features from the Kindle e-reader line, making it inaccessible to blind users.

Amazon's new entry-level Kindle sells for $80 with ads, $100 without them. It has the same 6-inch e-ink touch screen as its predecessor. (The screen doesn't light up like the step-up Paperwhite.) Now, it comes with more random-access memory and Bluetooth wireless technology, a first for Kindles.

Bluetooth is usually used for transmitting music or speech. In this case, it reads the Kindle e-books aloud when connected to Bluetooth headphones or speakers, such as Amazon's own Echo. Amazon's VoiceView speech technology, which also reads menu-navigation items and other interface functions, made its debut in 2015 on Fire tablets.

Once again, blind people can shop for new Kindle e-readers. "That's a step," says Chris Danielsen, director of communications for the National Federation of the Blind. "But how big a step depends on the execution."

While the National Federation of the Blind hasn't yet evaluated the new Kindle, Mr. Danielsen says his organization is in regular meetings with Amazon to improve accessibility in e-book reading, particularly in education. Amazon's move comes ahead of the organization's annual convention next week, where the company is a sponsor and exhibitor.

An important question is how simple it will be for a blind person to pair the Kindle to a Bluetooth audio device. Last month, Amazon introduced an audio adapter, bundled at no extra cost with the Kindle Paperwhite reader that automatically turns on VoiceView when plugged into the reader's USB port.

"We would be much more thrilled with a single-gesture way of setting it up, rather than a complicated set of instructions," Mr. Danielsen says of the new Bluetooth Kindle.

Amazon says readers can enable VoiceView on any screen with one gesture. "We've done a lot better job of making the out-of-box experience better for customers that need accessibility features," an Amazon spokeswoman said.

While Amazon isn't the only e-book vendor option for blind people, it has a majority share of the U.S. e-book market and a proprietary file format. It has offered some form of accessibility on other platforms including Fire tablets and iOS apps, but returning text-to-speech to its cheapest e-reader means blind customers may not have to pay a premium to access the company's content, Mr. Danielsen says.

For readers in general, the updates in this Kindle (and most of the latest ones, such as the premium Kindle Oasis are minor. At this point, the Kindle has no significant e-ink competitors—just tablets and phones, where people increasingly are doing their reading. The additional RAM in the new Kindle is there to assist the Bluetooth, though it will also speed up some functions, Amazon says.

Aside from the sleeker body, there is one more significant cosmetic development: The new Kindle—and its light-up sibling, the Paperwhite—now comes in white.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 22, 2016 17:45 ET (21:45 GMT)

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