Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!jeremy.prime.COM!jeremy
From: jeremy@jeremy.prime.COM
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: re:Looking backwards
Message-ID: <9001111411.AA02351@jeremy.prime.com>
Date: 11 Jan 90 14:10:58 GMT
References: <9001102206.AA04989@gslisf.lis.uiuc.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

> 
> 
> A few thoughts on this subject (particularly fax) from Dr. N. Negroponte's
> talk at the American Library Association's mid-winter meeting.  
> 
>      Fax has been an incredible step backwards.  People sit at their word-
> processors and create computer-readable materials, then print it out in order
> to turn it into a non-computer readable fax message! This will eventually either
> change or be superceeded.
Fax has one major advantage over the current computer mail setup.  You
plug in a fax machine to the wall outlet, connect a phone cable to it,
and you are ready to receive/transmit faxes from/to all over the
world.  Computer mail is incredibly complicated compared to that.  Fax
will start to become obsolete as soon as $600 "computer mail machines"
are available that can be plugged in, connected to a phone and are
ready to go.  Even then, we need a scanner and a computer independent
way of sending graphics.


-- 

Jeremy Nussbaum
jeremy@jeremy.prime.com
Prime Computer
2 Crosby Drive MS 16-2 
Bedford, Ma. 01730
(617)275-1800 x6745