This is Lainey Feingold, the lawyer for the California Council of the Blind who
posted yesterday's message about Citibank talking ATMs. I apologize for
leaving my standard "lawyer" email disclaimer on my original post which
apparently caused confusion. Here is the Citibank announcement again with no
warning at the end.
Thank you for help in getting the word out so these machines will be used
during the pilot.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CALIFORNIA COUNCIL OF THE BLIND
ANNOUNCES NATION'S FIRST
"TALKING TOUCH SCREEN ATMS" AT CITIBANK
OAKLAND, CA November 9, 1999 - The California Council of the Blind announced
today the installation of pilot "talking" automated teller machines ("ATMs") at
five Citibank locations in California. The pilot machines are the first to
combine touchscreens with technology that speaks information that sighted users
see on the screen. Users will hear the on-screen information through headsets
to ensure privacy. The pilot machines have been installed at the following
Citibank financial centers:
1. Downtown Berkeley - 2323 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, California
2. Downtown San Francisco - 260 California St., San Francisco,
California
3. San Carlos - 780 Laurel St., San Carlos, California
4. Los Angeles/Westchester - 8800 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, California
5. West Los Angeles/Rancho Park - 2566 Overland Ave., West Los Angeles,
California
Don Brown, the California Council's Berkeley chapter President, praised the new
machines: "Citibank's machine is tremendous - it allows me for
the first time to do a variety of banking transactions unassisted. This
is a great step toward making access to banking services a reality for people
who are blind or vision impaired."
The pilot machines have been installed pursuant to an agreement reached in
July between Citibank and the California Council of the Blind and members of
the blind community, who approached Citibank to discuss how the company's ATMs
could be programmed to communicate audibly with blind and low vision consumers.
Lawyers for the blind community in these discussions were Linda M. Dardarian of
the Oakland law firm of Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, Berkeley
disability rights lawyer Elaine B. Feingold, and the Berkeley-based Disability
Rights
Education and Defense Fund.
SAPERSTEIN, GOLDSTEIN,
DEMCHAK & BALLER
Linda Dardarian
A Professional Corporation
1300 Clay Street, 11th Floor
Oakland, CA 94612
(888) 316-8870
ELAINE B. FEINGOLD
Law Office of Elaine B. Feingold
1524 Scenic Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94708
510/848-8125
VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
To join or leave the list, send a message to
[log in to unmask] In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html
|
