Harvey,

Your bank's ATM may be using a camera instead of a flatbed scanner, which 
may partially account for the higher accuracy.  It will be interesting to 
see whether the software can read handwriting reliably as well as perfectly. 
In the case of your bank's ATM, , the software only has to deal with 
numbers.  In the case of our reading software, the software has to analyze a 
much broader range of text, which requires more resources, and may be much 
more prone to errors.  For your sake, I hope your bank's ATM can get the 
numbers right every time.

Steve

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harvey Heagy" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 10:37
Subject: scanning operation


> In this message I am speaking of scanning for reading purposes not public
> service band scanning.
>
> My bank now offers ATM deposits without the use of envelopes or deposit
> slips.  You simply insert all checks at one time into the receptacle for
> checks, or all cash at once into a separate receptacle for cash.  Since it
> also offers talking ATM's, I decided to try it to see if it could be done 
> by
> a blind person.  I found out happily that it could.  You can deposit 
> checks,
> cash or a combination thereof.  What further amazed me is that you don't
> have to enter the deposit amount.  The ATM reads the cash, checks or
> whatever and totals the deposit amount itself.  The check I deposited was
> handwritten, and the machine read it perfectly.  My question is, if we can
> have a bank ATM that can read handwritten checks perfectly, why can't we
> have scanning software such as Kursweil or OpenBook that can also read
> handwriting perfectly?
> Harvey
>