Baker & Taylor [has] announced a partnership with acclaimed scientist, inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil Technologies, to supply digital content for K-NFB Reading Technology, a newly developed e-book reading software created by Kurzweil in collaboration with the National Federation of the Blind. The software will be offered to consumers for free. B&T unveiled the software at the Frankfurt Book Fair with plans to launch the new reader in the U.S. at the end of November.
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In a phone interview with Kurzweil from his company’s headquarters in Massachusetts, he said not only can consumers use the software to read e-books, but the technology will allow the device its installed on to read the text aloud, in synch with a display of the text that highlights each word as it is spoken. On top of all that, he intends to offer the software for free via both downloads and CDs and told PW he expects to make money through the sale of books using the K-NFB e-reader.
[Snip]
Kurzweil explained that the K-NFB e-reader software will run on laptops and desktop computers (PCs and Macs) as well as netbooks and mobile phones—Windows mobile and the iPhone right away with other mobile phone operating sytems added as quickly as possible. The software can read any format from straight text to PDF and ePub.
He also described the new e-reader as, “the ultimate expression of my work over the years. It will have wide distribution and will be available not only to the general reader and to the blind, but to the millions of people who suffer from Dyslexia.”
Source: Publishers Weekly
See Also: K-NFB Technology
Details and imagery.
See Also: Comments from the National Federation for the Blind
See Also: Comments from Baker & Taylor
On a Very Related Note (10/14/09):
U.S. Copyright Office Publishes Request for Comments on Facilitating Access to Copyrighted Works for the Blind or Other Persons with Disabilities
The complete Federal Register announcement can be accessed here.(PDF)
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