David Rothman follows up on his review of the Voice Dream TTS e-book reader which can also read Web pages aloud, by highlighting the High Contrast add-on for Google’s Chrome Web browser. It doesn’t just add contrast to Web pages – it also turns black-on-white text into the reverse. Significantly, it works with the Kindle Cloud app within Chrome.
A new incarnation of the Voice Dream text-to-speech program–for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch–hit the Apple app store recently. David Rothman says that at $9.99 is it worth every penny.
In his article, Ken Strutin examines how the 21st century use of watch lists might or might not resemble the labeling of the McCarthy period, and how the experience of that era might inform an evaluation of present-day designation of the dangerous. After first describing the two labeling mechanisms, it compares them along several axes, finding that watch listing has both repeated some 1950s failings and moved on to develop some new ones of its own. In particular, because they are compiled and used in an opaque and completely one-sided process, watch lists run a substantial risk of incorrectly including many people who pose no threat.