Hi,
Everad,
They put a device out now that is free and reads the bills.
Thanks,
Alex,
On 24-Mar-09, at 1:53 PM, E.J. Zufelt wrote:
>
> 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
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> >
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