Panasonic Introduces Internet Fax

Panasonic Communications & Systems Co. has introduced the Panafax UF-770i, a new Internet fax machine. The machine reduces long-distance fax costs to the price of a local call. Another benefit is that the device seamlessly integrates what most users perceive as separate worlds. The user interface is identical to conventional fax machines. Users only have to enter an e-mail address on the machine's keypad to send an Internet fax message. It sends and receives documents, pictures, photos, handwritten messages and e-mail. By using the Internet fax relay function with two UF-770i units, a user can send to any standard G3 fax machine, bypassing most of the long-distance charges. The fax scans a document and compresses the binary image. It then wraps that data with TIFF (tagged image file format) headers and tags and encodes the TIFF file in base64. The data is then attached to a MIME file (multipurpose Internet mail extension) and is passed through a predetermined mail server with SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol). If another Internet fax is the receiving device, the original message will be printed automatically.