Its days may be numbered, but the floppy disc is about to get a place in the Sun. Agfa-Gevaert of Belgium is modifying the humble disc to tell sunbathers if their tanning sessions are too long (EP 892 283). The altered floppy has a sheet coated with a phosphor, barium fluorobromide, which is excited by ultraviolet rays. When you sunbathe, you open the disc's shutter so the rays strike the sheet. A reader, based on a modified floppy drive, then uses a helium neon laser to make the excited phosphor glow. By measuring the fluorescence, it can work out how much UV struck the disc. Trouble is, you'll have to take the monitor to a pharmacy equipped with a reader to find out if you've spent too long in the Sun.
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