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Following Stevie Wonder's plea for more blind friendly gadgets, it seems Amazon, for one are taking notice. The Amazon Kindle is a handheld electronic bookreader that some say is set to replace old fashioned paper bound books. The new version comes with text-to-speech support built in. That means any book in Amazon's 230,000 strong catalogue can be automatically read aloud by a synthetic voice. This is big news as it should open up in speech a range of books only previously available in paper editions. A range of 6 text sizes should also help visually impaired customers.
Now the bad news for those eager to get their hands on one, it is currently available in the US only, with no word on UK availability. At a steep price of $359 (£240) it will have to compete with slim Netbook computers and MP3 players with an audiobook subscription, both of which offer possible alternatives. The question is if Amazon's vast speech ready catalogue will give it an edge.