Smartphone app to ease cash dealings for people with visual impairment

AMMAN — Feeling the need to employ technology in helping people with visual impairment, such as herself, depend on themselves in money dealings, Sara Abu Ali released a smart phone application that reads money.

The Money Reader recognises paper currencies using the phone’s camera and transfers the results to the user via speech. 

The application helps visually impaired people to deal with cash money without asking for other people’s help, especially when they are not accompanied by friends or family members, Abu Ali the application’s founder told The Jordan Times.

The app supports ten currencies including: Jordanian dinar, Saudi riyal, Shekel, Canadian dollar, US dollar, euro, Egyptian pound, Kuwaiti dinar, Bahraini dinar and Emirati dirham. 

It also supports different issues of some currencies like the old and new issues of the Saudi riyal, Egyptian pound, euro and US dollar. 

However, it does not detect counterfeit currency, she noted. 

Ahmad Masri, a user of the app, said that the app provided him with more privacy. “Reaching out to others to count your money is uncomfortable and sometimes embarrassing, so using an app that recognises cash is great,”The 30 year-old blind man said. 

Masri believes that the app will protect him from fraudulence, recalling an incident when a taxi driver tried to cheat him by taking more than he owed for the fare. 

“The taxi driver claimed that I gave him five Dinars not ten but I managed to take the change at the end of the dispute,” Masri recalled.

Abu Ali said that the app is available for IOS and Android phones, and future updates will support more currencies and new features like colour recognition and mobile recharge cards reading. 

Abu Ali received a micro-fund to develop the application from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation but said that affording constant updates is not possible currently without further funding. 

“For that purpose, the app requires users to pay $10 for download,” she said, noting that securing more funds would help her make it free of charge.