Kindle Protest #2: Text-to-Speech Silencing Bad for the Blind

I said it before and I’ll say it again: The Kindle 2’s text-to-speech is pretty good. But, it is no competition for a good voice actor in an audio book. So, I didn’t really understand why the Authors Guild went up in arms after the Kindle 2’s release earlier this year. Amazon caved in and now lets publishers decide if text-to-speech reading on the Kindle should be disabled for a specific title. But, what if you are blind, visually impaired, or just too tired to open your eyes in an oxygen-poor airline cabin? Wouldn’t it be nice to turn on text-to-speech to have an ebook read to you? Well, CNET reports that one group decided to protest this state of affairs…