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>Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 21:25:23 -0600
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>From: Kathy Blackburn <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Newspaper Article: Scanner helps Blind Manage Life
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>+== acb-l Message from Kathy Blackburn <[log in to unmask]> ==+
>Austin American Statesman: Business
>_____
>business/tech
>  Monday, December 20
>
>Scanner Helps Blind Manage Life
>By Steven Barrett
>  Associated Press
>  Monday, December 20, 1999
>
>  Telling his Barbra Streisand apart from his Stevie Wonder is a whole lot 
>easier these days for disc jockey Alburnie Wright.
>  Wright, who is blind, labeled his compact discs using software that works 
>with a bar code scanner to read aloud descriptions of tens of thousands of 
>items from CDs to soup cans.
>  Now there's no chance he will play Streisand's "Evergreen" when he meant 
>to play Wonder's "Superstition."
>  The Morrisville, Pa., man also uses the program, called SCANACAN, to 
>label his clothes. He sews on a bar code and inputs a description of the 
>article of clothing, including its color. Then when it's time to get 
>dressed, he can avoid mixing plaids and paisleys.
>  SCANACAN was developed by a Manchester, S.D., couple whose Ferguson 
>Enterprises develops products to assist the blind.
>  Pat Ferguson, who is blind, said the program helps her keep track of her 
>pantry's inventory. After she uses an item, she tells the computer she has 
>one fewer of that particular item on hand. That also helps when it comes 
>time to make a grocery list, because it means she does not have to rack her 
>brain trying to remember whether she fixed corn or beans for dinner a week 
>ago.
>  "Computers have made a world of difference in our accessibility," she said.
>  A scanner reads the bar code and a synthesized voice provides information 
>the user requests -- a simple description of the product or, in the case of 
>food, how to prepare it.
>  She demonstrates with a bottle.
>  "Antacid chew tabs," a speaker attached to the computer flatly enunciates.
>  "Cream chick," it says when she waves another can in front of the 
>scanner's glowing red eye. The voice then spells out the directions to fix 
>a hot bowl of soup.
>  SCANACAN costs $600. The price includes a bar code scanner and the 
>software package, which has a database with bar codes for about 30,000 
>grocery items. A supermarket chain provided the codes to the Fergusons at 
>no cost.
>  The program allows users to create more databases and will hold up to 2 
>billion bar codes, though that number may be limited by the memory 
>available on the computer, Pat's husband, Vernon, said.
>  "SCANACAN is a home management system," Pat Ferguson said.
>  The blind can use Braille coding for the same purpose, but Wright, the 
>Pennsylvania disc jockey, said that's far more cumbersome. SCANACAN also 
>can benefit newly blind people who are not fluent in Braille or people 
>whose fingers have lost the sensitivity needed to read Braille, he said.
>  Wright said the program has done wonders for him in the month since he 
>bought it.
>  "It's totally changed my whole life," he said. "You can use it for so much."
>  For now, customers must manually enter descriptions of products whose 
>codes are not already in the program. But the Fergusons are seeking 
>databases from more manufacturers to expand the software's usefulness.
>  "We're always trying to get more databases," Pat Ferguson said. "We're 
>not going to charge for the databases as long as we're not charged for them."
>  The Fergusons rely on catalog and Internet sales for the bulk of their 
>business. That's probably for the best because the population of Manchester 
>is 10.
>  Ferguson, a native of Manchester, met his wife while working in 
>California in the late '70s. He worked for a telephone company and 
>custom-built computers on the side.
>  In 1983, the Fergusons decided to move to Manchester and it was there 
>that the couple went into the computer business full time. Ferguson had 
>built a talking computer in 1979 so his wife could help out with their work 
>of producing labels for commercial and private use.
>  Today, Ferguson does the programming and Pat Ferguson handles customer 
>orders and other phone and Internet duties for the home-based business.
>  "In the late '70s and early '80s, there weren't that many manufacturers 
>of adaptive equipment for computers," she said. "We were not really into 
>that at that time, but that is something we wanted to do. Our goal was to 
>help blind people succeed."
>presented by -Link-The Austin American-Statesman  and -Link-Austin360.com
>_____
>
>All rights reserved. -Link-© Copyright 1999
>
>
>************************************************************
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>* of the American Council of the Blind.                    *
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