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The R.S. Pearson Company has been developing mechanical, electro mechanical and more recently, microprocessor controlled products since 1966. We have a total of 7 patents issued and other patents pending on some of our newest products. In 1991, USA TODAY asked us to develop an electronic coin mechanism for their special USA TODAY newspaper rack. That effort resulted in patent no. 5,381,880. We later took the Coin Discrimination portion and expanded it to other news rack styles. The Coin discriminator is also offered as a stand-alone product usable in all types of vending machines where line power is not available. The Electronic Coin Mechanisms are sold by us directly to end-users and the coin discriminator is available for use within a variety of OEM products needing coin acceptance. We have sold over 50,000 of the above combined Electronic Coin Mechanisms to newspapers such as USA TODAY, The Houston Chronicle, The Tennessean and a variety of other newspapers, including Newspapers located in the Europe. It is a time tested product with a proven high level of reliability that will operate 8 to 10 years on a single 6 volt Lithium battery pack. Our first Electronic Coin Mechanism was designed to replace the old Stacker mechanism used on the USA TODAY proprietary news rack. This is our ECM-9800 model. Our next Electronic Coin Mechanism was designed to replace the mechanical totalizer used on TK-80 news racks. This is our ECM-98T model. It uses a service token to change price between Daily, Sunday & Special vend price setting. This enabled us to remove the old mechanical lock type changeover as well as being able to offer a third price setting for Newspapers that had a three price structure. In addition, the special Service Token performs a 100% test of the coin mechanism every time the rack is serviced. It returns the Service Token to the person filling the rack and also opens the rack door for refilling. We now also make an Electronic Coin Mechanism that uses a Key to change between the Daily & Sunday pricing for those customers wishing to gradually convert from mechanical mechanisms to Electronic Mechanisms without employee retraining required.. CASH LESS IS THE WAY OF THE FUTURE In the last few years, a number of our Newspaper Customers asked us to come up with a means for helping them to increase circulation in Apartment Houses. Out of that endeavor, came our “Eze-Buy System” that enables tenants to use their electronic door key to also do “Cash-Less” purchasing of Newspapers from News Racks as well as paying for laundry services and getting products from vending machines located within the apartment complex. This system required our developing an advanced Electronic Door Lock. Our Eze-Buy system is explained more fully on our www.eze-buy.com web site. The Eze-Buy project also resulted in our inventing an Electronic Door Lock (pat. Pend.) that has the potential to become a major factor in the upcoming transformation from mechanical keyed door locks to Electronic Door Locks. The Primary Feature of our invention is the microprocessor controlled RELEASE/RESET means. It costs less to make than current styles, offers a long and reliable operational life and consumes less than a third of the battery power of current electronic door locks. Our Eze-Buy system uses a passive Electronic device we call a “Personal Access Code” (PAC) enclosed within a plastic housing. The PAC is about the same size as a normal door key and easily fits on your key ring. The PAC contains a permanent internal number etched in silicone. This number cannot be altered or duplicated. We have tooled up for the PAC device and the connector used to communicate with Door Lock, Coin Mechanism or other device. PROVIDING GREATER SECURITY FOR NEWS RACKS We developed our High Security Head for the TK-80 style racks because our Newspaper Customers were experiencing a high rate of break-ins in their news racks. Racks were being broken into in a variety of ways, including drilling out the key opening portion of the lock, both padlocks and cam locks. While our High Security Head addresses all of the weaknesses of current units, we were still left with the main problems associated with the locks used in conjunction with the News-Racks. These locks were being picked, duplicated keys were being made and/or the tumbler core were being drilled out. Our solution to this problem was to develop our HIGH SECURITY E-LOCK which is usable in all type of cam or screw locks. See the following product section for more details. The E-LOCK uses the same P.A.C. device for opening as is used on our door locks. LOOKING AHEAD TO THE FUTURE We are always looking for other business that can use our proprietary products to help grow their sales and profits while also improving their products. Feel free to contact me if you would like more information or explore ways in which we can work together to our mutual benefit. Sincerely, Rune S. Pearson, President |