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RFID + Dart gun = DartMail!
breon.halling writes "Snail mail? Too slow. Email? Too much spam. So what's left? DartMail! Tony Tang and Eric Pattison from the University of Calgary introduce a new (well, new as of January 2003) method of transferring files and possibly shooting your eye out. Using RFID and a toy dart gun, 'DartMail lets people physically shoot electronic information at others.' Be sure to check out the movie, too!"
now spammers can cap your ass in the streets. "get a bigger penis, muthafucka!"
a potato gun with a message carved into the potato or a carrier pigeon and a canon just seem so much more obvious.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Hah! Way back around 1980 some computer technicians I worked with at Tektronix pioneered the InterDepartmental Ballistic Missile. Powered by freon, it flew about 100 ft, streaking over the heads of terrified cubicle inhabitants. They only did it once.
Wow, another dupe, this time one over 1000 years old! Letters by arrow? That's new! Way to go editors...
18 Meg WMV File and Html Page is cached at http://www.flipstartforum.com/dartcache/
I Encrypt My IM's
I'd be more interested in seeing something that would let you shoot a specific bit of information wirelessly at specific people near you. Seems like it'd be a funny way (now and then) to get to know people, by sending weird little one-liners to them from across a room. Among other possible "silent-communication" possibilities.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
I'll be ducking when they implement offline d-Mail. Imagine logging on to the network one morning only to be assaulted by a phalanx of darts coming from the server room...
DDOS attacks on people could get messy.
The accuracy of the info is only as good as the person's aim.
Packet-routing could be a bitch!
Imagine the new-found creativity from those Punch-The-Monkey ads.
"Are you saying I can dodge bullets?" "No, Neo, I'm saying you can READ them."
The mailman can put his skills to use: BANG! BANG! You've Got Mail!!!
As opposed to posting on Slashdot bitching about how someone else spends their time? ;)
Do you actually have to ask? This IS "news for nerds", remember... If you can't see the appeal in having an excuse to combine geeky electronics + launching ballistic projectiles at "friends", then maybe you're on the wrong forum...
18MB video of the dartmail :)
You've got INCOMING!!!!!!
we used to do the same thing with floppy disks between cubicles. Write the name of the person on it, toss it out there into the field of cubes. If a disk landed in your cube and was not destined for you then you were to give it another toss in the general direction of the person to whom it was addressed. Someone (Me) tried a rubber band launcher just for kicks but it really didn't work that well. Practice ended one day when a BOSS was beaned in the head with a flying disk.
Seems to me those soft fabric frisbees would be good for this since they should fly further and not be such a shock to be hit with. Sew a pocket into the underside of it and put your disk, USB key, RFID tag, or whatever in it and give it a toss.