Japan, the technologically advanced country par excellence, is finally starting to say goodbye to floppy disks, a medium that was very widespread in the 1990s and is still used in the Land of the Rising Sun by the Public Administration.
The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry - as Japan Today reports - announced that by the end of 2023 it had removed 34 instances that impose the use of floppy disks as a method of submitting data to the ministry, and an unspecified number of ordinances that they also impose the use of CD-ROMs.
The ordinances covered sectors such as gas, electricity and water supply, mining operations, and aircraft and weapons production.
The push to end the use of floppy disks in government agencies stems from two main problems.
The first is that physical media reduces the ability to send and share data online, hindering efficiency and complicating the process of reviewing or updating information.
Secondly, it is extremely difficult to find floppy disks for sale since they have essentially disappeared from the market.
Sony, one of the main manufacturers, stopped producing them in 2011.
Two years ago, Taro Kono, head of the Japanese digital division, had done a reconnaissance and discovered that there are about 1,900 government bodies, in a variety of ministries, that still require the use of physical media for data storage.
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