So I was speaking to Granny (who lives on The Far Side of the Planet), and I discover she can no longer read or watch TV. (Macular Degeneration)
The cassette player talking books seem to have reached end of life / becoming hard to get. "Easy", says I, I will buy her a large mp3 player, fill it to the brim with content and mail it to her. Surely this must be one of the most solved problems in the world. So I go to DSE, hmm. All the players have tiny screens, crowded menus, unreadable fonts, (even to me). None have tactile deducible controls. (ie. Can feel, braille like, which control it is.) All have way too complicated UI's for an elderly visually impaired not very technically able lady. Way, way too complicated. (Maybe a Creative Zen stone, perhaps I'll revisit that one, trouble is a tiny black thing might be rather hard for her to find. Perhaps if I attach it to a Big Bright lanyard....:-)) Anyway, try to start finding content. Copyright,copyright,copyright, oo, some gutenberg books under creative commons. Any bittorrents? Nah! That one didn't work, nor that one, why is this all so hard, gee, I'd really really hate to be visually impaired and trying to do this... which reminds me, I must find where I put my reading glasses again) Ok, this must be a solved problem. It is. There is something called the Daisy Consortium that seems to have a standard for audio books. Hmm. This is what Open Source was made for... surely there is a Daisy Reader package under Ubuntu, she's is staying with brother who runs Ubuntu. Nope, doesn't seem to be available. Anyway, that's a side issue. Ah, yes, there is a supplier around here. Hmm. Seems to have more buttons than I'd expect. Bah! no ruddy price! Why are they so shy / embarrassed about their pricing that they make a consumer phone for it? Anyhoo, phone up, over $500, only a 1gb sd card, with no content on it. But why no content on it? Legal issues too complicated. Surely you don't expect the visually impaired to start learning a new device by navigating the maze of inaccessible websites and copyright restrictions to find content? Why can't you find a collection of creative commons licensed stuff and preload that? Nope, we don't do that. Why only a 1gb card for a $500 device? It's a complimentary 1gb card.... Can you really get extract enough revenue out of visually impaired people to make it worth enforcing copyright over audiobooks? That's just plain sick. This civilization is sick. Hmm. I wonder how hard it would be to make up something using embedded Linux, festival and sox. I mean the UI needs to be hideously simple. John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
