WTF?! Several tech merchandise that may undoubtedly be thought of as out of date nonetheless discover widespread use in Japan. Compact discs, fax machines, and different archaic applied sciences stay a part of many Japanese government procedures, however the nation’s digital minister has now declared “war” on probably the most iconic: floppy disks.
Japan’s digital minister tweeted that floppies, CDs, and even mini-disks are nonetheless required for round 1,900 government procedures by which enterprise communities submit functions and different types. The nation’s digital company goes to deliver these procedures into the fashionable period (or the twenty first century) by permitting them to be carried out on-line.
Digital Minister declares a struggle on floppy discs.
There are about 1900 government procedures that requires enterprise group to make use of discs, ie floppy disc, CD, MD, and so on to submit functions and different types. Digital Agency is to alter these laws so you need to use on-line.KONO Taro (@konotaromp) August 31, 2022
“We will be reviewing these practices swiftly,” Kono mentioned in a press convention Tuesday (through Bloomberg). He added that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has provided his full help. “Where does one even buy a floppy disk these days?”
The Japanese government’s digital taskforce writes that broader adoption of recent applied sciences equivalent to cloud storage inside the forms is being slowed down by authorized hurdles. It plans to announce enhancements and updates to the methods by 12 months’s finish.
Various out of date applied sciences from our Once-Iconic Tech Products That Are Now a Fading Memory article are nonetheless being utilized in Japan. Fax machines, utilized by many international locations’ government branches up till lately, are nonetheless discovered in lots of Japanese government workplaces.
“I’m looking to get rid of the fax machine, and I still plan to do that,” mentioned Kono.
Floppy disks had been as soon as the usual format for pc software program. There had been a number of variations, together with an eight-inch one (80 KB) that was first utilized in 1967 and the 5.25-incher (360KB for double-sided) that had been widespread within the early Nineteen Eighties. But most individuals affiliate them with the extra inflexible 3.5-inch floppy, named after the versatile sheath on the within that contained the information.
It’s fairly unlikely that on a regular basis customers could have encountered many floppy disks over the past decade, but 8-inch variations had been solely dropped by the US for its nuclear weapons methods in 2019the Pentagon moved to SSDs. There was additionally Boeing, which was nonetheless utilizing basic 3.5-inch floppy disks to replace the software program in a few of its Boeing 747 planes in 2020.
