Spain Fujitsu develops Braille labelling solution

Today, the International Day of Disabled People, Fujitsu Services presents a new Braille labelling solution to be used in large retail areas. This solution will promote accessibility to information to blind and partly sighted people about certain items on sale.

The new application was developed by Fujitsu, in partnership with UET (Unidade de Equipamentos Tiflotécnicos), to print labels in Braille. These labels will be attached to products so that these can be identified by visually impaired people. The labels will contain the description of the product, its principal characteristics and expiration date. This Fujitsu solution will also allow the printing of labels in a normal printer so that users who cannot read Braille will be able to identify the contents of the packages labelled in Braille.

The new solution, besides the angle of social responsibility always present at Fujitsu, allows the maintenance of the Company in the leadership of technological implementation in the retail sector. The Self Checkout, introduced with great success in large retail sales areas in the last few years, is an excellent example of such leadership.

Law establishes promotion of accessibility
On the 22nd of July of this year legislation 33/2008 was published in Diário da República establishing measures to promote the accessibility to the information about determined goods for blind and visually impaired people. This regulation will require large retail areas to implement, by January 2009, equipments that provide blind and visually impaired people with the necessary Braille information about the product they plan to buy, namely the description of the item and its expiration date.

According to João Carvalho, leader of the Retail Business Unit at Fujitsu Services, «integration of new technologies in the large retail surfaces, where Fujitsu leads in shop systems and innovates frequently (as it happened with the systems of self-checkout) bring about the development of solutions that improve the buying experience of persons with special needs. With this new application of Braille labelling by Fujitsu, we are certain that the retail sector will bet once more on the modernization of their spaces and will meet the needs of people with important visual impairments - a bet that also represents the visible face of the social responsibility of retail».

Sofia Antunes, manager of ACAPO, says that «citizens with visual deficiencies face countless challenges and barriers daily, including the whole process of purchasing at retail. Without suitable labelling it is very difficult to distinguish between a tube of toothpaste and a tube of glue, or between a tin of pickles and a tin of floor wax. Solutions as the one that Fujitsu developed will make the buying experience at retail easier for the more than 160,000 persons with severe visual impairment estimated to live in Portugal».