"I received some notes at Christmas time and I kept having to ask Mum what they had given me," said Connor, who has been blind since birth due to a congenital disorder. More than 57,000 people signed an online petition that McLeod and his mother, Ally Lancaster, started last year.  By: Rosie Rios 
 
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 The Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) is now accepting and processing applications nationwide from blind or visually impaired individuals who wish to receive a currency reader to denominate U.S. currency. The currency reader, known as the iBill® Talking Banknote Identifier, is compact in size, easy to use, and provides a response within just a few seconds. The U.S. Currency Reader Program follows the BEP’s successful development and launch of two free mobile applications that operate through a mobile device’s camera to scan and denominate U.S. currency: EyeNote®, which operates on the Apple iOS platform can be downloaded for free from the Apple iTunes Store, and the IDEAL Currency Reader, which operates on the Android-based platform, is available on Google Play. "The process for redesigning Federal Reserve notes is complex and time intensive," the federal agency said last month. C. NEW FEATURES IN THIS VERSION 
 
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– Australia is redesigning its cash and adding a tactile feature so blind people can tell the bills apart. And as the nation's ABC News reports, the pending change is largely thanks to a 13-year-old kid named Connor McLeod. He launched a campaign and online petition that gained steam and culminated with him making a personal pitch to the Reserve Bank of Australia. Connor, who has been blind since birth, says the idea came to him when he got cash for Christmas. "I kept having to ask Mum what they had given me," he recalls. He says he generally uses coins when he needs money, "and then it just sort of hit me that my life isn't going to be all coins, so I thought I'd better make things a little easier, and easier for others as well." No word on when the new notes will be introduced, but don't expect anything like that for American cash anytime soon, reports NPR. While the Treasury Department has floated the idea in years past, it unveiled an alternative last month in the form of a currency reader. People who are visually impaired can carry around the device, insert the bills, and hear the denomination identified. Various apps, like so and so, can do the same.