Below is a video of a Kindle, dubbed the Frankenkindle, that an electrical engineer modified to make it easier for his sister with cerebral palsy to use.
The Kindle 3 is mounted to a wooden stand with a substitute keypad mapped to the Kindle’s 5-way nav controller and Home button. A control board is attached to the back and is powered by a 5V power adapter.
It is a prototype in its early stages so it’s not exactly pretty, but it is functional.
It highlights the fact that ebook readers need to be more accessible to the physically disabled. Touchscreen ebook readers are a step in the right direction, but aside from the iPad and the Intel Reader—a brilliant device designed for the blind and dyslexic—none really offer any advanced options that could help make using them easier for people with disabilities.
The Kindle 3 offers a voice guide feature for navigating with spoken menus and descriptions, along with text-to-speech, but other than that there really aren’t any options as far as dedicated ebook readers are concerned. Hopefully ideas like the Frankenkindle can gain more momentum in the near future and become widely available to those that need them.
The Frankenkindle is Alive!
More info about the Frankenkindle can be found over at Breadboard Confessions.
This is a reader that Kindle or a big company (with potentially millions of older or other than “average” customers) ought to be develop. Arthritic hands, dimming sight, hands-free wanna- be text to speech readers are waiting.
My suggestion: an on button, off button, volume (on a roller with ^^^^ indentations so persons with tactile deficits can move it on a continuum, and similar rollers for bass and treble adjustments for music. These rollers are on computer mouses.