Here are the top five reasons why fax remains essential for business use.

Saves Time And Money

In the present era, traditional fax machines have become much less common. These days, the great majority of businesses have switched to digital fax solutions, which allow for increased efficiency and cost and time savings.

Digital fax services only charge for inbound and outbound transmissions, unlike older models that require continuous expenses for paper and toner. Compared to the ongoing expenses related to maintaining traditional fax machines, these fees are significantly less.

Compliance With Legal Requirements

The distribution of medical records is now much more complicated due to HIPAA regulations. When exchanging documents between different healthcare facilities, strict guidelines are followed. It’s important to remember that these are not just security precautions. For example, the risk of misdirecting confidential health information does not go away even with advanced encryption.

Fax machines are still commonly used in medical practices, especially for communication between specialists, because they comply with HIPAA. Additionally, fax technology is still widely used by attorneys. The benefits of faxing are its legal validity, ease of physical record-keeping and real-time transmission. Compared to emails or texts, which might not have the same legal weight in court proceedings, faxed documents offer a trustworthy and robust record.

Messages Don’t Get Lost

Fax machines are still in use in 2024 because of their unwavering dependability, even in the age of digital communication. Fax messages are more likely to be delivered correctly than messages sent by phone or text, which occasionally don’t reach their intended recipient.

Signal outages are a common occurrence that can interfere with text and phone conversations and cause emails to get misplaced in a jumbled spam folder. But faxes overcome these problems by guaranteeing that the message will reach its intended recipient.

Does anyone still use fax machines these days? If you value the assurance that your message will reach its recipient, then sending a fax is still the best option. However, as online faxing becomes more popular, the preference is now shifting toward this digital form of communication. You can completely do away with the fax machine by using a fax app. When you install the application, your smartphone’s camera for scanning, security features, and Internet connection for document transfers are all you need to send and receive faxes.

Confirmation Pages

When debating whether or not fax machines are becoming obsolete, take into account the confirmation page’s timeless value. Fax machines are still widely used in business communication, despite their seeming antiquated status, because of these pages.

Verifiable proof of receipt, confirmation pages provide legal validation and support the upkeep of a formal record of business transactions. Important information like the sender and recipient’s fax numbers are displayed, along with the exact time and date the message was sent, highlighting their significance in the business world.

Security Concerns

An analogue phone line served as a direct and reasonably safe transmission channel for legacy fax machines. This technology’s inherent characteristics minimised the possibility of message interception or manipulation by outside parties. Traditional fax machines provided an additional layer of security against cyber threats by preventing their reliance on digital infrastructure. This helped to protect the data you sent from potential hacker intrusion.

On the other hand, Electronic fax solutions use the internet to exchange documents instead of traditional telephones. They take advantage of the speed and accessibility of online communication while offering the convenience of compatibility with antiquated fax systems.

Though eFax systems modernise the process, it’s important to remember that they might not have all of the security features that were inherent in their analogue predecessors.

Nevertheless, the transition from analogue to digital faxing represents a necessary change that strikes a balance between tradition and progress in technology. When evaluating the privacy consequences of using the current eFax services, it’s critical to take these things into account.

The post Five reasons why fax remains relevant in 21st century appeared first on International Finance.

Once again, wallets, phones, and keys were at the top of the list of often forgotten items, but riders aren’t just forgetting the usual suspects; they’re also forgetting things like backpacks, laptops, groceries, luggage, and that’s just to name a few.

Norhen Ali, Head of Communications for Uber’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, said, “We’ve all had that sinking feeling when we discover we’ve forgotten something in a taxi, airplane, bus, or train, only to realize later how unlikely we’ll be able to retrieve it. Each day, thousands of objects are left behind in the Uber app-requested automobiles, but if you’ve ever lost something in one, you’re in luck since you can quickly get in touch with the driver to have it returned.”

“Try to keep your stuff in mind as you leave the backseat this summer as you start your vehicle. If you misplace your skates or bike, Uber is always willing to assist in getting them back,” the official stated further.

Calling the driver is the easiest way to find a missing item, but if the rider forgets his/her phone, he/she can still access the user account on a computer. In that case, the rider will have to select the trip where he/she left something by tapping “Your Trips” first. After that, click the “Find lost item” option after scrolling down, followed by clicking the “Contact driver about a lost item” button.

Then, the rider needs to scroll down and enter the phone number he/she like to be contacted at, followed by touching the ‘Submit’ button. When the rider’s phone will ring, it will connect the individual to his/her driver’s cell number.

If the driver picks up the call and verifies that the rider’s property has been located, the latter needs to arrange a mutually agreeable time and location to meet the driver and receive the item back.

Also, the rider needs to leave a detailed message describing his/her ‘lost’ item and the best way to reach the person if the driver needs to pick the customer up.

Also, riders can also contact Uber assistance via webchat if he/she loses their phone and cannot sign into the app.

The post Uber reveals commonly misplaced items in its ‘Lost and Found Index’ appeared first on International Finance.

An iPhone costs between USD 429 for the iPhone SE and USD 1599 for the iPhone 14 Pro Max, which has a massive 1TB of storage. So, if you want to know which iPhone you must buy that matches your budget, we are here to guide you.

Apple iPhone SE
The most affordable iPhone right now is the SE model. You get the best with a 4.7-inch Retina HD display and a cutting-edge single-camera system with a 12MP wide camera. The phone has an A15 Bionic chip for lightning-fast performance and up to 15 hours of movie playback. It is strong, water-resistant to IP67 standards, and 5G enabled.

Apple iPhone 12
The iPhone 12 is a good option if you are looking for an improved iPhone SE model. The iPhone 12 has a stunning design, support for 5G, excellent cameras, and a powerful performance. However it does not have an optical zoom feature or a 120Hz display. The iPhone 12 is still ideal in terms of both cost and quality.

Apple iPhone 12 Mini
The iPhone 12 mini is a fairly priced, small, and powerful flagship phone. This is the best tiny phone, with a 5.4-inch display that stretches nearly from edge to edge, impeded only by a notch. Both aesthetically and structurally, the iPhone 12 mini is just a smaller version of the 6.1-inch iPhone 12.

Apple iPhone 13 Mini
The iPhone 13 Mini is the most powerful tiny phone. It packs the best cameras, longer battery life, and 128GB of storage to start and lead performance. You do not get Apple’s pro-level tools, such as a telephoto lens and a 120 Hz refresh rate. However, you get the same features as the ordinary iPhone 13, such as the potent A15 Bionic processor, excellent (albeit smaller) display, and all the most recent iOS features like Cinematic mode.

Apple iPhone 13
The iPhone 13 is the best iPhone for consumers on a budget because of its brighter display, longer battery life, and powerful cameras. When compared to the iPhone 14, you won’t notice many differences despite the absence of faster charging and the adaptive 120Hz display of the iPhone 13 Pro.

The post Having less budget, here are iPhones you can still buy appeared first on International Finance.

There can be odd incidents of you dropping your phone into the water too and that would mean saying the last goodbye to the now-ubiquitous gadget. But once a phone is lost, it’s not only an innate communication device but a reservoir of a lot of contents that is close to your heart.

Thanks to technological innovations that are readily available to everyday individuals anywhere around the world, losing your phone does not necessarily mean that all your favorite photos from childhood, or important work drafts that you might have stored in your now bygone phone are lost forever.

Voila, that is cloud storage for the uninitiated.

Depending on the phone one uses, there can be more than one way of ensuring that your choice of files is stored on the cloud. And thankfully, for the majority of the public, quite a lot of this cloud space is free. This means spaces enough to store thousands of photos and videos.

Cloud storage is readily provided by the phone manufacturer through the operating system of the phone. Primarily here it means Apple or Android, and both of them give a limited quantity of cloud space for free for this purpose. Other than these, there are multiple other cloud storage providers too. There can be those provided by the phone manufacturers which use their own variants of Android operating systems like Xiaomi/ Redmi has its own cloud service. Then there are other independent cloud storage providers too which can back up your phone.

Those who do not want to use any of this easy-to-use, mostly automatic, zero-intervention solutions can choose to manually keep copies of your phone data on your desktop or laptop PC from time to time like on a weekly basis.

Android phones
Since Android phones are more common, we will start with them over their more expensive counterparts manufactured by Apple. Google, now Alphabet, which owns and operates the Android operating system has made it super easy in recent years to store the data on phones on the cloud. If there can be a complaint about this part of Google’s offerings is that all of a single phone’s data cannot be stored in a single app. Instead, there is more than one app for this purpose.

For photos and videos, Google insists on users make use of its Photos app (Google Photos). Most phones currently come with preinstalled Photos app as part of the Google bundled apps. If one uses a little dated phone, they can download the Photos app from the play store. For most phones of this age, the Photos app by default starts making a cloud backup of every photo clicked or saved in the phone’s internal storage, even those that are received through social media or emails. In case, one needs to ascertain if the auto backup is turned on then one can open the Photos app and click on the top-right corner to find ‘Photos Settings’. After tapping in, the backup and sync option needs to be selected which can be toggled on and off. In the same menu, there will be an option to choose the quality of the cloud backups. Based on the choice of the user, the file upload size can be altered.

Like photos, for audio including your favorite songs, Google has enabled YouTube Music to back up songs from your phone. Unlike photos, every single song has to be individually backed up.
For this, one has to visit the music.youtube.com website on any web browser and tap on the top-right corner to find the ‘Upload music’ option. Other than just backing up, users can also access these songs across devices using the YouTube Music app or by visiting the website.

For all other types of files on your phone, Google allows you to use Google Drive to take care of them. It is likely that your android phone has the Google Drive app by default. In case you don’t have the app, it can be downloaded from the Play store.

Once the app is open, one can press the + icon on the home screen to access the files on the phone and choose to upload them on the drive to save them to the cloud.

Other than your files containing photos, videos, music, and documents, your phone also has other necessary information like call record details, contacts, SMS, and the list of all your apps. For all these, Google One is the solution. In order to ascertain that these details are automatically saved on the cloud on the go, open the Settings app on your phone and find Google. Then, tap on the Google app and toggle on the Backup by Google One option.

In the same menu, there is an option to select Google Account data, through this one can choose to back up data from applications like Calendar, Docs, Google Fit, and Keep among others.

Currently, Google allows 15 GB of free space for every android account for the combined storage on its cloud. Any additional space is chargeable as per the plan that you choose to buy from them.

Apple devices
If you own an iPhone or an iPad, there is no need to worry about losing your data too. Just like Android’s backup features, Apple too has its fair share of counterparts for each of these applications. Just like the Android features, it’s likely that your Apple device will by default backup your precious data be it photos or documents. In order to eliminate any doubt about the same, tap on the Settings button on your iPhone and find the iCloud option on the menu and click on iCloud Backup and then choose the Backup Now option. After that, the screen will show the last date of update, and you can be sure that your data is getting saved on the cloud. Unlike, Android phones, iPhones need to be connected to a WiFi network for backup.

On the iCloud app, one can choose what are the types of files that they want to back up on the cloud.

Like Google’s different apps, Apple too has individual apps for photos, software updates, and even user names and passwords used for different apps using the iCloud Keychain.

Compared to Android, iCloud backup is payable beyond the initial 5 GB storage.

Unlike Android phones, which can be accessed via your desktop or laptop just by connecting a USB cable, you need to have iTunes on your computer to access your phone’s storage and then make a copy of the data using the iTunes platform.

Third-party cloud
While the native Android or Apple solution is quite a fit for an everyday user, there is no need to restrict oneself to the default solutions. There are options from the other tech behemoths like Amazon and Microsoft. Amazon Photos for one offers unlimited photo storage for Prime users, it’s bundled premium subscription for free deliveries to the video streaming platform. On the other hand, Microsoft offers free 1 TB of free cloud backup for those with Office 365 subscriptions.

In addition to free unlimited photo storage, Amazon offers the most cost-effective cloud storage.

For Android users, there are options like Super Backup and Restore and numerous other third-party offerings which offer a greater degree of flexibility. Further phone manufacturers like Xiaomi, Oppo, Realme, and Oneplus have their own set of cloud storage offerings that are tailor-made for their users.

The post How to back up your phone data before it’s lost appeared first on International Finance.

April 23, 2015

Karan Belani

How do the various payment systems — cash, cheque, credit cards, net banking, mobile payment — compare in terms of

1.       Cost incurred by the customer

2.       Safety issues

There are virtually no costs incurred by the customer when paying in cash. But there are safety issues, especially if you’re carrying a large sum of money. If your credit card is stolen for example, you’re generally protected. If you are robbed of $500 cash, you basically have no recourse. When paying with a cheque, that assumes that you have a bank account which may come with various consumer fees. Most likely, you will also pay a charge for the cheques themselves. Paying with cheques can also represent safety issues if you carry your cheque book around with you. It typically has almost all of the information a criminal would need in order to steal your identity. Costs are incurred by consumers when paying with credit cards only if they carry a balance or go over their spending limit. Safety issues can arise if you’re purchasing items with a credit card over the Internet from an unsafe website. Although you might be able to recoup any lost money, if you don’t recognize what happened quickly, a criminal could run up a lot of charges, and it might take quite a while to get everything sorted out. Internet banking is basically free for the consumer as far as I know, and is generally recognised as being safe as well. However, you do need to take certain precautions, such as installing anti-virus software on your computer. Most mobile payment systems are free to use for the consumer, and they’re generally safe as well. Just make sure you are downloading apps from reputable resources such as iTunes or Google Play and be sure that your mobile device is password protected.

What is the basis for businesses selecting a certain payment system? For example, coffee shops accept cash, CC or mobile payments, but not cheques. Some public transport systems accept pre-loaded cards and cash.

Businesses need to factor in the cost of the particular payment system (credit card processing fee, for example) as well as preferences of consumers who normally want a system that is simple and easy to use. Generally speaking however, the more payment options you can offer to your customers, the more revenues you’ll potentially be able to generate.

How do you see the payment systems evolving in the next 5 years? Especially, in terms of payment via mobile phones.

According to research conducted by eMarketer, payments via mobile phones surpassed $1 billion last year in the United States, and are predicted to grow to $58 billion by 2017.

How does payment by mobile phones work?

You simply place your mobile phone near (or tap it to) the merchant’s Near Field Communication (NFC) reader and your credit card information is transferred over to the business and your payment is then processed.

Would it not be easier to pay by mobile phone as you are saved the trouble of carrying a CC?

I do think it’s easier to pay with a mobile phone.

Is there a possibility that mobile phones will diminish the utility of CCs?

You may see an eventual diminishing of the utility of credit cards, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. They’ll still likely continue to occupy a space in the payments industry. While smartphone ownership is increasing, only 64% of Americans currently own one.

Can mobile payments replace CCs, or other payment systems?

Mobile payments could eventually replace credit cards and other payment options, although I feel that will not happen in the near future.

What is the role, if any, of banks/MasterCard/Visa etc in mobile phone payments?

MasterCard actually entered the mobile payment realm before some of the more recent options, like Google Wallet and Apple Pay. It introduced its PayPass system several years ago. Visa launched its Visa Ready mobile payment system in 2013 as well.

As alternative payment systems mature in the next few years, how will the role of banks/MasterCard/Visa change?

Banks and credit card companies will either have to expand existing mobile payment options or get such a program in place in order to remain competitive.

Also Read:

Exploring digital payments at Money 20/20

Mobile payments: Trends in 2015

Americans being served cards with chips

The post ‘Payments via mobile phones are predicted to grow to $58 billion by 2017’ appeared first on International Finance.