Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Last gasp of the fax machine (24 Sep 2004) The persistence of the fax has much to do with the perils of e-mail. Because it is such a pain to operate, the fax is generally used with discretion (a relief after e-mail overload). Faxes also allow lawyers, among others, to have exchanges that they can later shred, without leaving an electronic record. The biggest gripe about document transmission via e-mail, however, is attachments: unless you have the right software, they are meaningless. “One of the most common academic experiences is the failed attachment: a person sends you an attachment with incomprehensible formatting of immense length that crashes your system,” says Gillian Evans, a history professor at Cambridge University. “Then there is an irascible exchange of often quite stylish e-mails--at the end of which one of the parties says, 'For goodness' sake, send me a fax!' This is especially true, she says, during summers, when professors are often at home using slow, dial-up internet connections. Unless e-mail improves drastically, in other words, the fax machine seems likely to retain a devoted, if shrinking, following. Article URL: http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3171500 Read 53 more articles from Economist sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Pictures as passwords     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy