Japan is struggling to quit floppy disks and fax machines

Tokyo — With its azure ocean views and terraced rice paddies, the city of Hamada, population 50,000, is far from Japan's major urban centers of Tokyo and Osaka. But Hamada is no digital slouch. Just like cities in other advanced nations, Hamada collects taxes, health insurance premiums and social security contributions from residents' bank accounts by sending invoice orders online to local financial institutions.

But in some respects, Hamada's transactions are a throwback to the 20th century. One of eight local banks the city administration does business with insists that payment instructions be handed over physically, on floppy disks. Here's what a floppy disk looks like, for anyone under a certain age:

The mylar-coated magnetic disks invented by IBM in 1967 have largely been consigned to museums in the developed world. They fit a mere megabyte of data — enough for a few seconds of video.