"I imagine a powerful fax lobby hard at work sustaining the byzantine bureaucratic business processes that still require fax machines". That would be Japan. I read an article a couple months ago about how behind they are with moving away from the fax. The government has been slowly transferring their information. There are restaurants that still use fax machines to take food orders. And the last company that was still providing support for faxes, folded a couple of months ago. Why? Because the culture is too old and conservative for change. If it still works, why change is their motto.
BTW, I never got an MP3 player, but some cool people got me one of the first XM radios.
It is so weird to think that Japan is leading behind because they were the leaders in electronics. Japan finally realized that they were having a brain drain. They had to create initiatives to keep their young innovative minds from leaving the country.
I feel this one acutely. The Sidekick II I started using about 20 years ago still gives me strong nostalgia, and I sincerely think many of those design features are still superior to today's smartphones, including programming in longer phrases you us a lot, and having a killer QWERTY pad.
"I imagine a powerful fax lobby hard at work sustaining the byzantine bureaucratic business processes that still require fax machines". That would be Japan. I read an article a couple months ago about how behind they are with moving away from the fax. The government has been slowly transferring their information. There are restaurants that still use fax machines to take food orders. And the last company that was still providing support for faxes, folded a couple of months ago. Why? Because the culture is too old and conservative for change. If it still works, why change is their motto.
BTW, I never got an MP3 player, but some cool people got me one of the first XM radios.
Dang that’s telling for Japan. They were once the pinnacle of progress; now they are the world’s oldest population.
It is so weird to think that Japan is leading behind because they were the leaders in electronics. Japan finally realized that they were having a brain drain. They had to create initiatives to keep their young innovative minds from leaving the country.
On the plus side, they’re pretty much top in the world for life expectancy at 85
I feel this one acutely. The Sidekick II I started using about 20 years ago still gives me strong nostalgia, and I sincerely think many of those design features are still superior to today's smartphones, including programming in longer phrases you us a lot, and having a killer QWERTY pad.