Two Universities Reject Kindle DX Because of Text-to-Speech DRM Issue

Here’s a bit of disappointing educational gadget news from Betanews…

Universities reject Kindle DX as a textbook replacement

I was skeptical of the idea of using the relatively gigantic and expensive Kindle DX ebook reader as a university textbook replacement vehicle. But, I hoped it would work out to bring textbook costs down for students, reduce the physical load they have tote around, and perhaps even provide a better way of reading (searchable text, etc.).

Interestingly enough, the reported major factor was the decision by the Author’s Guild to demand that the Kindle’s text-to-speech (TTS) feature be disabled for ebooks on demand. TTS is a great tool for people with visual processing impairments as well as people who simply need to multitask (listen to a book while walking for example). And, the two universities that ended their Kindle pilot programs cited this as one of the problems they have with the Kindle DX.

It is too bad that a potentially great tool like the Kindle ebook reader was rejected essentially because of yet another DRM (Digital Rights Management) issue.

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