The Canadian approach, also known as a waste of taxpayer money, was to put braille on the bills. One full braille cell representing $5, 2 for $10, 3 for $20, and 4 for $50. The braille flattens in no time at all and is virtually useless unless you have a new crisp bill.
HTH, Everett On 24-Mar-09, at 5:45 PM, Greg Kearney wrote: > > I don't think this requires a technological solution. Australia has > currency that is both accessible, nearly indestructible short of > burning, and has never been counterfeited. Here is how theirs work: > > Each bill is a different color and a different length. The bills are > $5, $10, $20 and $100 the $1 and $2 are coins. Blind Citizens of > Australia makes a give away a small plastic device that you place any > bill into and then fold the bill over the top. The device has marking > to indicate the bills value based on how long the bill is. > > The bills themselves are made from a plastic material that can be > wash, folded and can not be torn. Each bill has a little clear > "window" in it which is a different shape and texture so even if you > don't have one of the BCA devices you could still tell the bills apart > by touch. Persons with color perception can just use the different > colors of the bills. > > It's simple efective and secure. > > > Greg Kearney > 535 S. Jackson St. > Casper, Wyoming 82601 > 307-224-4022 > gkear...@gmail.com > > > > On Mar 24, 2009, at 12:12 PM, Jessi Rathwell wrote: > >> >> dude, I went to that presentation too!!! very, very interesting!!! I >> can't wait til this becomes available!!!!! >> On 24-Mar-09, at 11:06 AM, Chris Blouch wrote: >> >>> >>> Well, since we're already somewhat off topic, one of the most >>> amazing >>> presentations I went to at CSUN was a product called SeeScan from a >>> company called iVisit. It uses a camera image to do object >>> recognition >>> based on pictures. In the demo they laid out a bunch of stuff such >>> as >>> cereal boxes, CDs, US currency and all they did was aim the camera >>> to >>> have it read off what it was. They ran it on some small computer >>> about >>> the size of an old-school walkman tape player about 1"x5"x7" and a >>> USB >>> camera. It apparently can handle differing angles, orientations and >>> lighting automatically and completes the acquisition and recognition >>> about 4 times a second. So pretty much as soon as they aimed it at a >>> $5 >>> bill it started saying "five dollar bill" over and over until they >>> aimed >>> it at something else. It can even handle partially obscured objects >>> such >>> as a credit card that is partly under a piece of paper. They tested >>> it >>> with 10 blind users and had 100% success identifying objects. I >>> asked >>> them about scalability since I might want to have a whole grocery >>> store >>> worth of objects loaded up. They said it can handle about 10,000 >>> images >>> in a single database. You can swap out databases and each image >>> takes >>> about 10K after processing (100MB for 10,000 objects). They are >>> hoping >>> there will be online community swaps of databases so you can share >>> what >>> you've already stored. It can 'learn' a new object in about 4 >>> seconds. >>> You just aim it at the object and hit the learn button and then >>> associate some text with the object. The work is being done as part >>> of a >>> grant from the US Veterans Admin (I think) so they said once it's >>> out of >>> the lab it should be cheap because the research costs don't have to >>> be >>> recouped by the manufacturer. They also have a client/server version >>> working with a cell phone camera and a remote processing server. >>> >>> Sorry for the off-topic but this was pretty incredible and it seemed >>> few >>> people came to their presentation. >>> >>> CB >>> >>> alena.roberts2...@gmail.com wrote: >>>> I am taking a poll on my blog on how to make U.S. paper currency >>>> accessible to the blind. In September of last year, a judge ordered >>>> the treasury to make the money accessible. As far as I know, there >>>> has >>>> been no plans to actually change our money. Please visit my blog >>>> and >>>> vote. The poll will be open until the middle of next month. I plan >>>> to >>>> blog about the results and send them to national blindness >>>> organizations and the treasury department. I think that they need >>>> to >>>> know what the blind community needs before they make any changes. >>>> >>>> http://blind-gal.blogspot.com >>>> >>>> Alena >>>>> >>>> >>> >>>> >> >> >>> > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
