At 12:43 PM 6/6/99 -0400, Dan Flasar wrote:
>HI Al,
>    I think I have an idea of what you're talking about but would you be a
>little less abstract and walkl us through a real-life scenario of how this
>would work?  Woud we have cards that we could use to scan in at the merchant
>that would palce an accounting of the transaction on our cards, which we
>could then read (somehow) in our computer?
>   On one sense, doesn'this happen with a debit card?  all our transactions
>with a debit card are recorded on our bank statment, though, admittedly, they
>don't give us an accounting of what we bought.

I will try to explain, even 'though I don't know all the details myself.

The kind of cash card I am thinking about is a little more complex than a
debit card, but the comparison is helpful.

With a debit card, what the card gives the cash register is your account
number.  Then the register gives you on its display the amount to be
approved as a debit.
The account is a debit account, which means that when the store gets the
money it comes straight out of your bank balance, there is no grace period
for you to pay it off.  But the card does not store the balance in your
account.  You give your PIN to authorize the debit from your bank, the bank
checks the debit against your balance and give the OK or not OK, and the
transaction is completed.  The store has to communicate with the bank or a
clearing service acting as agent for the bank to get your money.

I believe that with the current generation of pilot cash card schemes, the
card carries and adjusts a balance with each transaction.

With a cash card if I understand it, the card contains a little bank of its
own.  It is a smart card with a chip and a memory and a program.  It is
like an electronic piggy bank.  You put the cash card in the bank's
automated teller machine and it charges the card up with credits that are
taken out of your bank (or the cash you give to the agend loading up your
cash card).  Merchants' computers also can talk to the smart card when you
put it in their reader to deduct funds for what you bought.  I presume the
equipment would be a lot like today's credit card handling cash registers,
where there is a customer display and keyboard for reviewing the bottom
line amount and entering PIN or approval OK for the amount.  In the systems
I have heard about the balance on the card can be checked with a "wallet,"
a small device that creates a user interface for the processor on the card.
 Of course, once the communication protocol is established for this smart
card to talk to banks and merchants and wallets, it could also talk to a
laptop or Braille-N-Speak or Braille Lite or Parrot or whatever personal
digital assistant you find easiest to use.  That is the point where it gets
interesting to have a longer statement of what exactly you are paying for,
and not just how much in dollar value is left on the card.

The point is that no matter how current proposals for cash cards work
exactly, the technology of smart cards has come along to the point where
people are trying to use them in ways something like this, and we should be
thinking about how would they work if they were truly swift for the
eyes-free user.


>     I know there is a move in congress to simplify legal docuemnts in
>everyday terma doubtful proposition at best. And I know that there was a law
>passed that demanded that the interest rate, annua fee and a fewother bits of
>information had to be featured in a certain box or typesize.  But after
>painstakingly reading a document from a credit card company that wanted to
>offer me a card at 3.9% apr for 6 months, after which I would have an APR of
>Prime + 6% (in other words, a variable rate APR)  And if I missed a payment
>or sent in the minimum at any time in the 6 month intro period, I'd lose that
>rate and go to 22%!!!!  Likeise after that period.
>    This info was NOT in the legally required info box, nor wat it shown that
>finance charges accrued from the date of purchase!
>  We do have the technology to handle this stuff, it's true - if we have a
>good, expensive scanner and a good text reader - which aint' cheap.  I do
>feel that it's not fair for us to have to take that much more time to read
>our statements and riskmisunderstanding because  the our credit card
>providers won't provide us with electronicly available information.   And
>good luck trying to scan in a credit card statment in soe way that makes
>sense.

You can get your credit card statement in softcopy from the credit card
company.

>   Well, get back to me - I'd like to pursue this.

I agree that there is a running tug of war between the full disclosure
consumer advocates and the business deregulation advocates.  I actually
believe that there is some merit to each side.  We definitely have to take
a fresh look at the legacy compromises as new technology becomes available.
 There was just a White House meeting on electronic commerce and this would
be a good time to get going on some of these topics.

There are people trying to get the consumer adequately protected
independent of vision or non-vision.

You have to realize that in Lynx there is no fine print.  If you got
softcopy of the terms and conditions, you would have a better deal than
what the laws have negotiated for the consumer at large.  That means that
Ralph Nader and company would prefer your solution.  You should explain to
those consumer advocates how it would work.  We need all the allies we can
get.

But you also have to realize that you can find allies in the business
community, and that you really need their help to make the right things
happen.  Business people don't really like having unhappy customers.  One
of the reasons that the detailed terms and conditions that you have to be
told by law are printed so small is not only that the offeror doesn't want
you to read them too closely, it is also because most people won't take the
time anyway.  Working on plain English contract language that reduces the
volume of lawsuits and customer complaints will draw some investment from
the business community, and you need the customer service segment of the
business community on board to understand how to sell a good solution to
business and not just to Ralph Nader.

>   I'm also looking into how it might be possible for those foreign film
>buffs like myself to work out a technology wherein the subtitles for a
>foreign movie could be read and transmitted to us.  Certainly it woudn't be
>hard to do that on videos, which I'd accept.  It's just a matter of adding a
>seperate sound track - which would have to be turned on or off for normally
>sighted folks.
>   How to do this in a threateris something else again.

Find out what can be done with the SMIL format.  The way you can do it in a
theater is with the same technology as Assistive Listening Devices - short
range FM.

I think if you start at WGBH you can learn about theaters which are
experimenting with audio description of movies.  I am not current on this
but there is stuff being done in the first language and it is not that much
of a change to do it in a second language.  This is a separate topic, so
far as I can tell.

Al

>Dan Flasar
>System Manager
>Generacl Clinical Research Center
>Washington University School of Medicine
>St. Louis, MO
>