I have a question? Is it the person who has difficulty seeing that has to put the tags on and then setup the data base in the device as to what each bar code number corresponds to? If it is then I see a huge problem. Say such person manages to get to a store where they buy several bags of items and bring them home. Seems to me it will be very difficult to sort things out and enter all the type data.

Is a better solution a thing like my inlaws have? That is a unit with a small video camera on the end of a flexible arm and then that displays in real time on a CRT screen at up to something like 25X. They simply have to hold the object under the camera and look at the screen. The zoom level is adjustable. Only trouble with this one is that it needs to be made cheaper. This one was about $1800 and I think much of the cost was due to the fact that it has a document/book tray thing under the camera with X/Y axis slides that make reading much easier. With the small cameras you see now (esp the X10 ones you see in dozens of pop-up web ads) its hard to see why something couldn't be made for under $150->$175.

There also seems to be much more versatility to a picture based system as opposed to a text based system as well. And a picture based system has no need for the ID tags as virtually all products are labeled already anyway.

Michael Karas