People in US still use faxes? Funny!

Only lawyers and realtors, from my experience

Healthcare offices as well, e.g. for requesting records, transferring records, etc.

Honestly, I don't know what terrifies me more about such businesses: storing my personal information on pieces of paper with no way to track their movement, or storing my personal information on (what is most likely) unsecured computers. They are both pretty horrific, but I think I prefer them to store it on paper if they can't/won't afford to have secure computers.

I can't count how often I've seen doctors offices use Windows 2K or XP Home Edition this year alone. Even saw a doctor use a computer after closing down "does your computer have viruses" IE popups -- and then proceeding to enter my private info into their (probably HIPAA-certified, which, at that point meant squat) patient tracking application.

Just saying that paper is not always necessarily worse than electronic records.

and insurance companies

And accounting firms. Many plumbing supply companies accept invoices this way as well.

And Apple.

APPLE asked me a faxed copy of an ABN Certificate for a friends business I was setting up as a business developer account.

They've changed this requirement and now require your company's DUNS number instead. I'm still not sure which is more annoying.

They also use pagers. Crazy.

Pagers, in their niche, are better than any other technology available. Considering how often my phone battery runs dead by accident, I feel a lot more comfortable with surgeons having pagers that run for months off a single AAA battery.

http://mobihealthnews.com/12503/why-doctors-pagers-still-tru...

A simple nokia from 10 years ago or so will run for a week on a charge. It's only modern phones with massive screens, GPS, etc that eat battery.

A week is a far cry from months. Range, reliability, and delivery guarantees are also an issue with phones.

The only real argument against pagers is that it's another thing to carry around, but in that regard modern pagers are a lot better than dumb-cellphones so pagers still have the advantage (because lets face it, people are still going to want their smartphones).

(Well, that and "they are old, and old is lame", which is not really an argument. ;)

Outside hospital workers, you'd be hard pressed to find many in the UK that even know what a pager is, let alone someone who has one.

I'd like to know where you're finding a pager that runs for months on a single AAA. My pager takes a AA battery, and it has to be replaced roughly monthly. Why, yes, I do work in Healthcare IS, why do you ask?

Fax usage in the United States is a small fraction of what it is in Japan.

I haven't received (or sent) a fax in 2+ years, and I used to deal with them (multiple times) every day in 2003.

oh, haha. well that makes sense..

seems i've shown my age.. though i definitely read that, my mind seems conditioned to totally ignore the notion of faxing something. not discounting anything here, but just find it kind of funny. given my perception of fax machines, it could very well have said send notice via telegraph.. that aside, i can see how as a technology it stills has practical applications, especially in the legal field where paper records are heavily relied upon.