This is exciting for many reasons but one being educational systems may finally start adopting the digital tablet.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/201...
http://www.fastcompany.com/1727292/apple-ipad-officially-pas...
If Amazon Kindles were starting to appear in schools, iPads and Apple would be right there. Apple has always been good about getting computers into schools.
The textbook industry got so crazy that most kids have TWO of each now because they need them for school and home, because the 5-6 2 inch thick books of outdated materials are too heavy. So what is more kludgey and when could you ever really write in books themselves? I never wrote in textbooks even though I bought them and never took the time to sell them. Can't people take notes outside the book?
Plus if you have Kindle accounts/books you can also pull these on other devices (maybe now) and especially laptops and PCs.
Although I will say I do remember kids taking notes in pencil in the margins.
Also - two textbooks? seriously? I can't imagine any school springing for that added expense, or even parents for that matter.
I can't imagine the cost/waste of all those textbooks and how silly it will look when we look back on how we do it now.
here is the results of the court case: http://www.ada.gov/case_western_univ.htm
However, a general interface to a Braille display is necessarily one which transmits the letters of the book in reading order, so I don't see how they can implement that without opening up a big gap in their DRM.
I expect that is more likely to make a bigger difference since it has buy-in from the publishers, BN effectively runs most the college bookstores, you can type faster with a keyboard, and most students don't want to carry a ton of books. Would be nice if it supported Latex for Math/Physics notes.