This post assesses different money reading apps on smartphones. It is good for people who have a smartphone and use apps, but we are still waiting for the tactile enhanced bills which we can use just like everyone else. (I posted about this in this my January 2015 post HEY, THE IBILLS ARE COMING! BUT WILL YOU USE YOURS? )
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP): spoke in 2015 of the iBill money reader “As an interim measure in advance of issuing tactile enhanced Federal Reserve notes, the BEP is providing currency readers (the iBill), free of charge, to eligible blind and visually impaired individuals.”
The tactile enhanced bills (when they finally arrive) will not have some version of the braille code on them, because it gets flattened with use. Instead the ink will be thickened so that the numbers can be read by touch,” said David Kingsbury one of the testers of the proposed notes.
If you ever get a $100 bill, the 100 is bright yellow and positioned sideways at the end of the bill, and the $5 has been pink but not sideways for some time. Come on Bureau! We aren’t all smartphone users, nor do we want to slide every bill into a fiddly little aperture on the iBill.