Amazon bringing Voice Guide and Explore by Touch features to Kindle Fires for vision-impaired users

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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Amazon's political reading map shows which way your neighbors are leaning

Religion, bathroom routines and politics are three things you should never, ever discuss at the dinner table. However, if you're curious about your neighbors' political reading habits, then you should check out Amazon's Election Heat Map. The bookseller rated the top 250 books with a "clear... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2012-08-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hairy Bikers topple Fifty Shades from Amazon top spot

Orion title The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight has toppled Fifty Shades of Grey... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Waterstones starts readying stores for Kindles

The first digital units are beginning to be built into the Waterstones bookshop branches, as the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon trialling local delivery scheme

Amazon is reportedly trialling a scheme to deliver parcels which customers can collect from... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Rakuten beats Amazon to Japanese e-reader market

Kobo's parent Rakuten claims to have sold 100,000 devices following a launch of the Kobo e-... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google buys Frommer’s Travel Guides

John Wiley & Sons work to sell off unwanted assets as Google makes its foray into the publishing industry.  Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-08-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Fifty Shades toppled from Kindle top slot by 20p title

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy has been knocked from the top of the Amazon Kindle store by an e... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HoZ buys Kindle million-seller

Head of Zeus has acquired eight novels in the Donovan Creed series by Kindle millionaire John... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Banville to bring back Chandler

Raymond Chandler is the latest classic author to have a current writer take on his mantle, with... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Twenty pence ebook cracks Kindle top three

An ebook being offered on the Kindle store for 20p has broken the top-three monopoly of the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Kindle books 'outselling print' on Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.co.uk customers are buying more Kindle books than print books, both hardback and... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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James 'has outsold Potter' on Amazon UK

E L James Fifty Shades trilogy has out-sold J K Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series on... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-08-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon Picks Up Market Share

Amazon appears to have been the big winner in picking up former Borders customers. According to new figures from Bowker Market Research, Amazon’s share of book spending in the first quarter of 2012 was 29%, up from 23% in the comparable period in 2011. Barnes & Noble’s share of spending, in... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2012-07-27 00:00:00 UTC ]
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AAA adds voice to PLR transfer opposition

The Association of Authors’ Agents (AAA) has added its voice to complaints about the... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-26 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Spalding success for Amazon

Amazon UK has announced another self-published author has sold well though its retail site,... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Is Amazon Making A 10-inch Tablet?

News updates all day from Fast Company.Amazon is getting ready to introduce new tablets, Staples' president of U.S. retail, Demos Parneros, told Reuters Monday.Parneros said the online retailer will introduce five or six new tablet SKUs, or stock-keeping units, including those for a 10-inch... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2012-07-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Barnes & Noble brings out Nook for Web, comes full circle with e-reading (update: not on iOS)

We'd say it's about time. Although it's almost two years late to the party, Barnes & Noble is responding to Amazon's Kindle for the Web with Nook for Web. Much like its counterpart across the virtual aisle, the Nook web edition lets readers browse free samples and whole books entirely from a... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2012-07-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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HarperCollins to publish Fifty Shades-inspired lovers' guide

HarperCollins is attempting to help readers live out their Fifty Shades of Grey-inspired... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2012-07-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Review: Kobo Touch eReader

First there was US-based Amazon's Kindle eReader, then Canada-based Kobo turned the eBook race into a two-horse affair with its range of eReaders. Continue reading at Stuff

[ Stuff | 2012-07-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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One hotel swaps out Bibles for Kindles

The Hotel Indigo tries a two-week experiment with leaving Bible-loaded Kindles in hotel rooms instead of paper Bibles. Continue reading at The Christian Science Monitor

[ The Christian Science Monitor | 2012-07-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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