Last night I was at my local Bank of America (I am currently located in the United States at the moment) and I used for the first time the “image recognition” technology for checks. Basically, you don’t have to put an envelope with your checks into the ATM anymore. You just deposit the checks one at a time and the ATM recognizes the amount of the check and prints you a confirmation of your deposit. You don’t have to add anything up anymore.

I must say I was pretty impressed with the accuracy of the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for each check. Did it save me time? I am not sure, but that may have been because I was standing in front of the ATM looking for the stupid envelopes before I finally read the “No Envelopes Required” sign on the ATM. I bet the video footage of me wandering around the machine, looking everywhere for an envelope and then finally trying to figure it all out must be a funny video. I wonder if I will end up on YouTube.