51¶¯Âþ

How can you create, send and receive e-mails without firing up a computer?
All you need, says Panasonic, is an e-mail address and its new Internet-enabled
fax machine, the UF-E1. When a handwritten letter, sketch or document is fed
into the machine, it is scanned and stored in memory as a TIFF (tagged image
file format) file. When an e-mail address is keyed in, or pulled out of the
machine’s address list, the fax machine dials your Internet Service Provider and
e-mails the TIFF containing your message. Any incoming e-mails are printed out
like a fax, so users are spared the hassle of setting up computer-based Internet
accounts. Makes Web browsing a problem, though…