Amazon's been attuned to the needs of its vision-impaired customers for years, first rolling out text-to-speech technology on its original Kindle e-reader years ago. Today the company revealed plans to add to that feature set in its Kindle Fire and Fire HD (7-inch) tablets with Voice Guide and Explore by Touch technology. Voice Guide's an improvement upon regular text-to-speech tech that reads aloud any action performed by users -- things like announcing app names and book titles when they're selected. Explore by Touch lets folks swipe their fingers across their Fire's display and identifies each onscreen item as their phalanges pass over them. Once aware of what app or piece of content's being touched, a simple tap opens the item. Ready for the new assisted navigation experience right now? Well, all you anxious Fire owners will have to wait, the update doesn't land until early next year.Filed under: Tablets, Software, AmazonCommentsSource: Amazon Continue reading at 'Engadget'
[ Engadget | 2012-12-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A husband-and-wife bookselling team have described handing a petition into Downing Street calling... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon is hiring for positions in Russia, suggesting its Kindle ebookstore will open there soon and where they will take on several established, but not yet dominant, competitors. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last week two of China's leading ebookstores Dangdang.com began offering nearly all of their ebooks for free, a move criticized by authors and publishers alike. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Jingdong, China's third place commercial online bookstore, is boosting its challenge to Dangdang and Amazon's dominance by focusing on service and international titles. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Last Friday, when Amazon made 14 original TV pilots available for free viewing on its streaming video service, it launched an experiment that could do to TV production what the Internet juggernaut did to the book trade. The polite business term is disruption, but that’s not the word people whose... Continue reading at Slate
[ Slate | 2013-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This article branches off of a longer story we're tracking called Apple's New Technology Partners: What Developers Need To Know.Steve Jobs once said said, "people don't read anymore." He wasn't the only tech pundit pronouncing books dead in the middle of the last decade, as people turned to... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-04-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#form partnerships
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#deal worth
#$200 million
Barton Seaver Imparts Grilling Wisdom for Sustainable Cooking in Where There's Smoke. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon’s quest for industry domination is “scary” and it could have the ability... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The new James B. Hunt Library at North Carolina State University shows what can happen when you marry a library with cutting-edge technology and interesting design--plus an automated librarian. In a digital age where many commentators tolled the death knell for the book-bound library, we’ve... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A sense of displacement permeates the 'Telex from Cuba' writer's second novel, set amid the social and political unrest of Manhattan and Italy in the 1970s.Rachel Kushner's house in Angelino Heights feels about a million miles — and a million years — from the tumult embodied in her novels. There... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hodder & Stoughton has acquired fantasy thriller Angelfall by Susan Ee, a novel originally... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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West Wales-based publisher Y Lofla has attacked Amazon over the unavailability of Welsh-language... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Line, the popular messaging platform based in Japan, is challenging ebook vendors like Amazon and Rakuten with a new service to download and view manga, or Japanese comic books. The company has launched "Line Manga," a mobile app for Android and iOS phones. Line's initial offering consists of... Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Medium's hypothesis has always been that people create better things when they work together. The publishing platform's newest tool helps its authors do just that. Biz Stone and Ev Williams' founding mantra for Medium, the publishing platform they launched last August, was, "People create... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2013-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Libraries across the country are taking part in a high-tech treasure based on Simon Mayo’s... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We've come a long way since an IBM 704 first croaked its way through Daisy Bell. Now we've got Siri copping an attitude when we ask a stupid question and Google Now feeding information in an incredibly realistic sounding voice. AT&T has its own initiative, dubbed Natural Voices. At this... Continue reading at Engadget
[ Engadget | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The response of people to the sad news concerning Iain Banks, who announced he has terminal cancer, makes us realize how the book trade is like a huge, extended family. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Simon & Schuster has partnered with CBS Outdoor to bring its author chef Lisa Faulkner’... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon and six US publishers have asked a US court to dismiss a lawsuit by three American... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2013-04-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Holtzbrinck's five-year-old self-publishing platform epubli is expanding to the UK amid a huge shift in attitude toward self-publishing and its potential. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives
[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-04-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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