NEWSWORTHY
Doorway width mandated by Tokyo accessibility ordinance will leave many wheelchair users out in cold
A group representing disabled people in Japan has said the doorway width stipulated in an amendment proposed for Tokyo's barrier-free ordinance for hotels is unlikely to be wide enough for many wheelchairs. The amendment, which the Tokyo Metropolitan Government aims to put into effect in ...
Japanese director Hikari's '37 Seconds' wins prizes at Berlin Film Festival
Japanese director Hikari's "37 Seconds" won the Audience Award in the Panorama section at the Berlin Film Festival on Saturday. The film, featuring amateur actress Mei Kayama, who has cerebral palsy, also won the International Confederation of Art Cinemas' Art Cinema Award in the Panorama ...
Unicode's new emoji aims to help break bloody taboo surrounding periods
Women and girls will be able to use an emoji to chat about their periods from next month, which will help to end the shame around menstruation, a child rights group said on Wednesday. Coding consortium Unicode, which distributes emoji across mobile devices, said it ...
With 575 days until the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, and a law passed earlier this month that opens the door for 340,000 foreign workers to enter the country over the next five years, Tokyo is about to see a lot of new faces. Tokyo Gov. ...
Majority of small-to-midsize Japanese firms are failing to meet disabled employment quotas
Only 35 percent showed willingness to hire people with mental or physical disabilities either “positively” or “to abide by the law,” the survey showed.
Cafe opens with robot waiters remotely controlled by people with disabilities
A cafe featuring robot waiters remotely controlled from home by people with severe physical disabilities has been launched in Minato Ward, Tokyo. Five robots measuring 1.2 meters tall, controlled by people with conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a form of motor neuron disease, ...
Breaking down barriers: The challenge of getting around Tokyo in a wheelchair
Gaining a first-hand insight into what is needed to create universal access in Tokyo in time for the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.
The government has demonstrated it didn't understand the point of its own law — to set an example for the private sector by hiring large numbers of people with disabilities.
Raising children as a foreign parent here is no picnic, but what about when your child is also coping with physical or learning challenges?
Do the elderly and disabled people in Japan want robots to look after them?
What appears to be lacking are detailed surveys and studies, asking questions of the elderly and disabled people whose quality of life Japan's new legion of robots are supposed to improve.
The problem with padding employment records in Japan
In August, it was reported that central government ministries and agencies, not to mention national legislative offices and local governments, have for years been fulfilling their legal responsibility to hire certain numbers of people with disabilities by fudging criteria for determining what qualifies as ...
Cafe to showcase robot waiters steered from afar by people with ALS, other debilitating diseases
A temporary cafe that will use remotely controlled robots as waiters is set to open in Tokyo's Akasaka district in November to show how machines can act as proxies for people with severe physical disabilities. The cafe, which will be open on weekdays between Nov. ...
