Exchanging cash with no fear: A fast mobile money reader for the blind
Nektarios Paisios, Alex Rubinsteyn, Lakshminarayanan Subramanian · 2012
Despite the rapidly increasing use of credit cards and other electronic forms of payment, cash is still widely used for everyday transactions due to its convenience, perceived security and anonymity. However, the visually impaired might have a hard time telling each paper bill apart, since, for example, all dollar bills have the exact same size and, in general, currency bills around the world are not distinguishable by any tactile markings. We experiment with the use of a broadly available tool, the camera of a smart-phone, and several methods of classifying SIFT key-points to recognize partial and even distorted images of paper bills. Our results show that our system can be used in real-world scenarios to recognize unknown bills with a high accuracy.