Fax me

Another technology related post for Japan.

Japan relies heavily on fax machines to this date. Seem crazy? Yeah it is a bit, while most of the world has moved on the scanning and emailing things (or merely just emailing them), they seem to be a bit hung up on these devices. Japan invested heavily in them just before the internet was birthed and as a result refuses to give up on them. Instead they continue to upgrade them and modify them so that you now don't even need to scan anything in to send a fax. You can create the fax on a touch screen that has recently become a part of the new designs. Know what that sounds like? Email. Due to the fax machines resilience to things like modern innovations and its own expiring uses, you will be able to find them at any company and the majority of homes as well. It is not too uncommon to hear that someone will fax you something late at night as opposed to emailing.
The primary reason that the fax machine became a tool of Japan-wide use was because kanji was easier to write than to hand type on a computer. As computers were a fairly recent invention at the time, I suspect that there was no efficient way to input the kanji characters when typing and very likely the entirety of the kanji collection might not have even been added yet. Since then it has become much easier to type in kanji; however, like a stain on your favorite shirt, the fax machines' prevalence is a thing that still has yet to meet its tossing.
As such I receive scheduling documents that could easily be draw up in excel and sent via email, via a fax that is in turned scanned in and sent to me via email instead.