Catch phrase

While sidewalk ramps help persons with disability (PWD) in the Philippines to access buildings, Japan uses braille blocks to guide the blind to their destination.

Using a cane, the blind can read the braille blocks set on the floor or pavement indicating the name of a place. The so-called tactile paving can be found in train stations, pedestrian streets, and public offices in 10 prefectures, including Tokyo and Osaka, Japan Today (JT) reports.

The PWD-assisting technology has been enhanced to become audio guidance for visually impaired people. The new braille blocks marked with black stickers in special patterns, when scanned by a smartphone camera and app, play audio information about the location and its surroundings, according to JT.

The developers of the blocks, Kanazawa Institute of Technology and Tokyo-based W&M Systems LLC, plan to make the system available in multiple languages and are considering enabling it to answer questions by incorporating generative artificial intelligence capabilities, JT reports.

Meanwhile, an unusual audio recording proved helpful in fighting crime in Lancashire, England.

Narcotics dealers operating in the city’s Blackpool area were busted by police on the strength of an incriminating avian voice.

Police stumbled on a video of Shannon Hilton’s pet parrot saved on the suspected drug dealer’s phone when they recently raided her home. The video showed the talking parrot repeatedly saying “two for 25,” drug lingo that means “two portions of cocaine for 25 pounds,” The Telegraph reports.

Police also found video calls between Hilton, 29, and her boyfriend, Adam Garnett, 35, who was directing drug operations from a prison using smuggled mobile phones, according to The Telegraph.

The news outlet added that Hilton and more than a dozen other members of the drug ring were jailed for 103 years for trafficking cocaine, crack, heroin, ketamine and marijuana. Garnett, who was already serving 15 years, was handed a further 19 years and six months to be served consecutively, it added.