Work in Japan on developing a legal framework for assisted reproductive technology, in which a child is born using the sperm or egg from a third person, has failed to make substantive progress.
In the current situation, the right of children born through fertility treatment to know their biological parents is not guaranteed, making in-vitro fertilization using a third person’s sperm or egg is effectively impossible.
Japanese police plan to launch a new unit based in the Tokyo metropolitan area next spring to investigate the rising number of scams nationwide that often target the elderly, with the new team to involve police officers from across the country, officials said Saturday.
The envisioned unit is expected to have more members and a larger role than an existing team that was established in 2005 to tackle so-called special fraud cases, covering scams such as the swindling of elderly people by impersonating their children and asking for urgent money transfers over the phone.
According to a public opinion survey on smartphone usage conducted by the government in 2020, less than 10 percent of those between the age of 18 to 59 responded that they “hardly use” or “do not use” such devices.
In contrast, the percentage of those saying they hardly use their smartphones rose substantially for older generations, standing at 25.7 percent of those aged 60 to 69, and 57.9 percent of those aged 70 and above.
A survey conducted by the Japan Federation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (JFV), a national organization, revealed on May 31 that of 853 people with disabilities surveyed regarding the use of digital devices such as smartphones and PCs, nearly 70% of the respondents answered that they have difficulties in terms of operating and other skills (technical skills). As digitization continues to advance, how to provide support for people with disabilities will become an issue.
When Japanese news outlets reported the problems with software like Microsoft Teams, they used the term “障害”, and since the same term is often used to refer to a news story about disability issues, it was difficult to find news about people with disabilities in Japan, as any Google search with the term “障害”only returned results to do with the Microsoft 365 outage.
The Mitsubishi Electric Advanced Technology Research Institute in Japan is researching remote control technology on the theme of no-contact. This initiative is being undertaken so that people with physical disabilities can perform jobs and find work.
The Japanese government plans to launch a system by the end of fiscal 2022 to have over 20,000 personnel help elderly people with their smartphones and other digital devices, it was learned Wednesday.
An experiment is being carried out in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture, to demonstrate a service that would allow users to use a single app to make cab reservations and arrange for vehicles to be automatically driven around hospitals so that elderly people and people with disabilities who have difficulty getting around can visit medical institutions smoothly.
Hyogo Prefecture has become the first prefecture in Japan to use a new guidance system for the blind and visually impaired whereby the colour of traffic lights can be detected via a smartphone.
On July 8, an attempt to use virtual reality (VR) in training for people with developmental or cognitive disabilities to find employment or return to work was held at ‘Work Support Suginami’, an employment transition support office in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward.
Barrier Free Japan