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Justice Department settlement puts on-campus Kindle use on hold
Amazon may have recently announced it was beefing up the Kindle's functionality for vision-impaired users, but it looks like that's too little too late for three universities using Kindles as an alternative to textbooks, who have now agreed to shelve the e-readers until such enhancements are in place as part of a settlement with the Justice Department. Those universities include Pace, Case Western, and Reed College, who were all sued by two organizations representing the blind, which alleged that while the Kindle has a text-to-speech function, the menus do not, thereby making them impossible for blind students to use -- another university testing the Kindle, Arizona State, has already reached a similar settlement. Assuming Amazon lives up to its promises, however, it looks like the Kindles could be put back to use as soon as this summer -- and the universities in question will still be able to finish any pilot programs currently taking place this semester, just not expand their use.
Kindle DX college plans revealed: only 300 students total
We knew the Kindle DX pilot programs at Arizona State, Case Western Reserve, Princeton, Pace, Reed, and Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia would be limited in number, but it sounds like students at those schools will have be extremely lucky or well-connected to get their hands on Amazon's latest -- according to Pace reps at today's launch event, each school will only receive around 50 Kindle DXs for the trial. That's just about 300 total Kindles, and it makes Amazon's crowing about revolutionizing education seem a little hasty. Not only that, but it's not like the program is particularly ready to go, either: the schools still haven't figured out which classes they'll try and switch over to the Kindle, instructors have yet to be brought on board, and it's still not clear whether Amazon or the schools themselves will pay for the Kindles, although students will definitely have to shell out for the books. That's a lot of dealmaking to get done -- looks like Amazon just gave itself some summer homework.
