ATM Machines are not yet ready for the blind.  For many years I have used my
ATM Card at most major chain retail markets and stores to get cash.  When
making a purchase at a major retail outlet, ask if they give "Cash Back"
when you use your ATM card.  Some stores have a $40.00 limit.  Most
Supermarket Grocery Stores will give you up to $100.00 in cash at time of
check-out.  My sur-charge is only twenty cents, far less than the $2.00 or
more charged at most ATM outlets.  Additionally, the transaction takes place
at the check-out register, a far safer place for a blind person than many
ATM locations.  It has been a get cash life saver, not only near my home,
bet in strange cities far from home.  Gordon Wahl

Kelly Pierce wrote:

> Voice-Guided Cash Machines for the Blind
>
> November 23, 2000
> WHAT'S NEXT
> By ANNE EISENBERG
>
> GETTING cash from an automated teller machine is a convenience that
> most people now take for granted. But not the blind.
>
>   Braille figures on keypads are useful for blind people when they
> are punching in a personal identification number. But Braille isn't
> much help after that, because the rest of the transactions are
> usually visual, driven by on-screen choices like Checking or
> Savings?
>
>   Now Diebold Inc., of Canton, Ohio, a major manufacturer of
> automated teller machines, has developed a prototype for an
> inexpensive machine guided entirely by audio prompts. The company
> was spurred in part by a lawsuit filed against Diebold and the
> Rite-Aid Corporation under the Americans With Disabilities Act
> charging that the machines that Diebold was installing in Rite-Aid
> stores used screen text prompts that were inaccessible to the
> blind.
>
>   The new automated teller machines, which will be manufactured by
> Diebold, are designed not for the posh world of $10,000-to- $30,000
> high-end machines typically set into the walls of banks, but for
> the world of $5,000-to-$8,000 plug-them-in A.T.M.'s springing up in
> retail spaces like drugstores and grocery stores throughout the
> country. Inexpensive enough to be bought by small businesses, the
> new machines will make bank transactions more accessible and
> convenient for the blind.
>
>   Within a year or so customers may plug headphones into an A.T.M.
> at the corner grocery store and be guided by synthesized speech
> asking politely, "How much cash do you want?"
>
>   Diebold will demonstrate a prototype of the new machine at a major
> trade show, the Bank Administration Institute conference on retail
> financial services next week in New Orleans.
>
>   Using voice to guide an A.T.M. is not a new idea. There are
> already a handful of high-end voice-guided cash machines scattered
> across the United States, many of them manufacturered by Diebold.
> But those machines, primarily found in banks, usually use sound
> cards with canned messages, typically recorded by actors, that are
> stored on the machine in the form of audio files. Any time the
> procedure changes, the script must be changed and rerecorded by the
> actors   an expensive procedure.
>
>   The new machines are not likely to produce the polished tones of
> an actor, but they will cost a lot less and be much more flexible.
> That is because the voices that will speak from the new machines
> will be generated not by professionals but by computer software
> that converts text into synthesized speech.
>
>   The synthesized speech is understandable, though unmistakably
> produced by a machine, not a person. When users plug their
> headphones into the jack in the modified A.T.M., the
> computer-driven text-to- speech technology will translate the given
> string of characters and read them aloud by way of the sound card.
>
>   Text-to-speech technology is already widely used, in voice
> recognition programs, for instance, that read back text like memos
> or letters that people have dictated to their computers. It is also
> being used in programs that read e-mail over the phone and in
> conversational interfaces being developed for Web sites.
>
>   "This is the first time a text-to-speech solution has been
> implemented on an A.T.M. at this price point," said Alan Looney,
> director of product planning and management at Diebold.
>
>   The new machine will have a customized processor and software. The
> software within the machine will manage what is said and when.
> Specialized circuitry and electronics will handle the
> text-to-speech conversion and drive the headphone jack, Mr. Looney
> said.
>
>   Diebold was moved to develop the new machines in part because of a
> lawsuit brought in May by the National Federation of the Blind and
> others in the United States District Court for the District of
> Columbia.
>
>   Daniel F. Goldstein, a lawyer for the federation, said that
> Diebold responded to the lawsuit in a way he found unique. "Instead
> of fighting or settling, as most groups do," Mr. Goldstein said,
> "Diebold went far beyond what we sought. They wanted to talk about
> an effective, inexpensive way to build better machines, not just to
> settle."
>
>   Diebold entered into a cooperation agreement to develop new
> technology and to market it so that A.T.M.'s with voice technology
> might become the default option in the country for retail machines,
> Mr. Goldstein said.
>
>   "Within nine months," he said recently, "we're to complete a
> design for an improved retail machine that has all the features the
> National Federation of the Blind wants."
>
>   Curtis Chong, director of technology at the federation, is among
> the people who will be examining Diebold's prototype to see if it
> is up to snuff. Mr. Chong is totally blind.
>
>   "We, the blind, are used to synthesized speech, so that is not
> going to be a problem," he said.
>
>   The National Federation of the Blind has a membership of 50,000.
> Mr. Chong estimated the number of blind people in the United States
> at 1.1 million. "Any blind person who is currently using a computer
> knows how easy it is to understand text-to-speech," he said.
>
>   Mr. Chong, like others involved in developing the new machines, is
> in favor of inexpensive headsets carried by each user, rather than
> machine-mounted telephone handsets, which are expensive and easily
> vandalized.
>
>   The new generation of machines in retail outlets, he said, will
> have to perform certain actions. First the machine should be able
> to give a physical tour, telling the user where its controls are
> and how to use them.
>
>   The tour, as well as any other procedures run on the machine, must
> be interruptible, he said, so that at any point the user can stop
> the spiel and get on with a particular transaction.
>
>   For the machines to be satisfactory, he said, every important step
> they take should be verbalized, from verification of the personal
> identification number to balance inquiries to receipts. The receipt
> is very important to Mr. Chong. "It provides that final bit of
> verification for users before they walk away," he said.
>
>   Mr. Chong currently uses two cash machines, neither of them
> voice-guided   one in his neighborhood grocery store and one at his
> bank   and through them he has learned how important verification
> can be.
>
>   "It's possible for a blind person with a good memory to use a
> familiar machine," he said, as long as the person has memorized the
> sequence of buttons to push and there are no changes in the screens
> that cause the transaction to go awry.
>
>   "I stick in my card, wait about three seconds, enter my pin and
> then quick punch the A key three times," he said, describing the
> process first to enter the pin, then to indicate he wants to
> withdraw money from his checking account. "Then I punch in an
> amount I know is divisible by $20, and then `yes' to accept the
> transaction."
>
>   If all goes well, he gets his money. But if the bank has made
> changes to the screen and Mr. Chong doesn't know that, he ends up
> having to flag down someone to help him. "But I will never tell a
> sighted person my PIN number," he said. "The one thing the Braille
> helps me with is to punch in my PIN."
>
>   Mr. Chong is looking forward to the time when he will be able to
> use a machine at a bank, a convenience store or even a drive-up
> window without relying on his memory or the kindness of strangers.
>
>   "We are going to work toward text-to- speech in the next
> generation of A.T.M.'s so that we have voice guidance in all stages
> of the transaction," he said. "So on a bad day, when I stick in my
> credit card by mistake, the machine will let me know."
>
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[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
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