[access-uk] Barcodes and blindness

  • From: "BAFB" <bafb@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <"Undisclosed-Recipient:;"@freelists.org>
  • Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2010 01:44:32 +0200

    

Hello everybody.  Thank you for welcoming me on this list.  I'm Olivier, a 
visually impaired Frenchman. So is my girlfriend.  As my English is far from 
perfect, a friend of mine who teaches English, has helped me write this text.

 

Blind people and all visually impaired struggle in everyday life to identify, 
find, organize all their shopping (foodstuff), their belongings, various items 
and all the documents that one piles up awaiting to be classified in order to 
use them in one's professional or private life.

 

Today a group of friends have found an inexpensive and almost universal 
solution which does not require specially adapted equipment other than the one 
we already have.  You most certainly have heard of barcodes.  Nowadays you can 
find new or second-hand equipment that enable the blind or even the deaf-blind 
(thanks to a vibrator) to capture the barcode of a wide variety of products. We 
have tested some device and adapted their user's guide to simplify their use in 
order to 

1. find the information about almost every product on the web

2. print our own labels

3. neatly classify every item in our homes

In a near future, we'll even be able to know the best before date of perishable 
products.

 

So far some friends have helped me with software they developed for free. Now 
we have started translating them so that results we have already shared in 
France can be shared worldwide by any person who wants to recognize food, 
hygiene and maintenance products, DIY and gardening or print their own label 
for documents or CD's and DVD's.  We are even developing labels that could be 
sewn onto clothing.

 

In France, the official Agency for Normalization is working to publish 
guidelines of good practice so that manufacturers would develop a system to 
easily locate barcodes on packaging, even tactilely when possible.  In doing so 
we hope that standards will change for the best throughout the whole world.

 

With the help of a USB barcode scanner and a computer (or even a Mac on 
internet), or with a nokia phone and a bluetooth barcode scanner, identifying 
all kinds of products anywhere, anytime becomes a reality !  Add to this that 
all the necessary software is available for free and can be used with nvda or 
desktopzoom, then we enter a world where everybody can access the same 
information.

 

Should you wish to share our results and your experiences, please join our 
mailing list by subscribing at 
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/barcodes-and-blindness/ 

 !  Together we can make information on manufactured products available to 
everyone.

  
Let me apologize to all the persons this message might bother.  Since our 
solutions can help a very large number of people, the owner of this group has 
allowed us to inform you all.  May we ask you to 

publicize this information and our address to all your friends.  By doing so 
you will help us prove our work was not in vain.

 

 

Best regards, Olivier

 


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  • » [access-uk] Barcodes and blindness - BAFB