Shanghai phone booths given new lease on life

Remember the old phone booths that were once everywhere on the street? Are they out of service now, or even still there? In Shanghai, these booths are now outfitted with new features and ready to go.

Since 2022, Shanghai has renovated and upgraded once-abandoned phone booths and adapted them for modern life, thepaper.cn reported.

The upgraded booths provide a variety of services such as ride-hailing, hospital appointment registration and public policy consultation. It also offers sign language video services for the hearing-impaired.

If you get lost, you can use AI face recognition to find your family members; if you forget your phone or have no power, you could make a free call or use a booth as a charging station.