4 ms·

A partial answer: Googling 'japan fax' would give you many articles attesting that faxes are still a stable for communication in offices. e.g. https://www.inde

A partial answer: Googling 'japan fax' would give you many articles attesting that faxes are still a stable for communication in offices. e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-fax-machine-online-hanko-a9501906.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-ja... > Japan’s health ministry has said it will allow health centres to report new coronavirus cases online, instead of by handwritten faxes, after a doctor lambasted the legal requirement. Another very externally visible example is that the Japanese have taken a long time to transition from SHIFT_JIS to Unicode on the web, and on Windows.

kiliancs 6y ago
I appreciate this is a partial answer, but by those standards the US is also similarly behind. For example, still commonly use checks and they are nowhere near transitioning to the metric system.
- deleted 6y ago
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- T-R 6y ago
  While I don't think Japan should be judged solely on its fax machines (they're ahead in some places and behind in others), there is a difference with fax machine usage in Japan vs the US - they're a trailing indicator of another bottleneck. Fax machines are so widespread in Japan largely because they ease the process of physically stamping documents with a registered stamp (a hanko), which is used instead of a signature. So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. One of the goals of the new prime minister is to finally start phasing them out.
  - com2kid 6y ago
    > So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...

kiliancs 6y ago

I appreciate this is a partial answer, but by those standards the US is also similarly behind. For example, still commonly use checks and they are nowhere near transitioning to the metric system.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
T-R 6y ago
While I don't think Japan should be judged solely on its fax machines (they're ahead in some places and behind in others), there is a difference with fax machine usage in Japan vs the US - they're a trailing indicator of another bottleneck. Fax machines are so widespread in Japan largely because they ease the process of physically stamping documents with a registered stamp (a hanko), which is used instead of a signature. So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. One of the goals of the new prime minister is to finally start phasing them out.
- com2kid 6y ago
  > So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...