Tactile marks on currencies
This post is primarily created to help blind people who travel to a different country and would like a quick reference on how to recognize the local currencies. There is of course currency recognition apps which one can use, here I will only concentrate on currencies, which do have tactile features. I will explain how to interpret those features.
A few days after my presentation about accessible coin exhibits, I got a call from the Bank of Canada Museum, which was previously called the Currency Museum, to enquire about my presentation, and it turned into an on-site visit. I spent a day with the museum’s employees where we discussed my ideas about accessible exhibits, coin collecting, accessible currencies and many other fun things.
Over the last year, many new opportunities became available for me to learn about coins with the use of artificial intelligence. These developments truly open a new chapter in what coin collecting could mean to me without vision.
Previously I wrote a lot about recognizing coins with technology, so far what is still working and available is Seeing AI by Microsoft. What I was able to do is using optical character recognition to get enough text from a coin to tell what it is. It mostly works with good quality coins and good quality pictures. After I determine what a coin is, I use Numista to get more information, however, what I am able to get really depends on the descriptions users provide.
Continue reading “Recognizing coins with artificial intelligence”
Recently I learned that the Smithsonian has a new accessible exhibit, called Really BIG Money. And you know me, I just need to check things like that, so I used the excuse that flying home from Cincinnati there was no direct flight and I had to switch flights in Washington DC. Layovers are where good things happen.
I contacted Jennifer Gloede, who put me in touch with Ellen Feingold, who set up a meeting with me, and was very kind to work with my schedule so I could visit the exhibit on my way home.
Last month I attended the Leadership Exchange in Disability and the Arts conference in Boston. I was very interested in the conference, so when I decided to attend, I thought it would be great to contribute something interesting. Given that not too many accessible and tactile coin exhibits exist, I submitted a short proposal about how to make coin exhibits accessible for blind people.
It’s been exactly ten years that I have started this blog. It has been transformed a few times, and it has also changed my life in many ways.
According to Coin World, the Bureau of Engraving and Printing confirmed that we will have a tactile $10 bill by 2026. The initiative is not new, the first research to print tactile Dollar bills started in the 1990’s. But let’s look at what this really means.
Continue reading “We will send people to Mars before the US will have tactile currency”
I spent the last week in New Orleans, and as soon as I found out about my trip, I started to prepare to visit the Mint museum. However, things didn’t turn out too well. Previously I was writing about fun travels and museum visits, and maybe a few years ago I wouldn’t have admitted what happened, or just wouldn’t have written about it. But let’s look at a museum visit where things didn’t go well, mostly due to my own mistake.
Continue reading “The New Orleans Mint, when things don’t go well”
Among the most recent tactile currency markings, a new trend is emerging: indicating the value using dot patterns. The idea is not new, it has been used in Canadda since 2004, but for some reason most recently it has been picked up by other countries.
When you can’t see the coins you buy, sooner or later it is inevitable to buy a fake. One of the most frequent questions I get from people is how do I know if a coin is real or fake. The short answer is, I don’t. But there is much more to it,.
