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Real Snail Mail

Posted by kdawson on from the slower-than-pigeons dept.

A few news outlets, mostly in the UK, have picked up the story of gastropod-enabled email delivery. The RealSnailMail project out of Bournemouth University uses snails with RFID tags to deliver email. The service will officially launch at SIGGRAPH on August 11, 2008. While it's still under development, the perpetrators write, "For testing purposes some messages may be forwarded sooner than expected. Sorry we can not guarantee unreliability of service at this time. We hope to have RealSnailMail working less predictably as soon as possible."

3 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That was definitely... by sm62704 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Research? Well I don't know but some good art came from it. Siggraph is computer-generated art. From TFA:

    Our snails are equipped with a miniaturised electronic circuit and antenna that enables them to be assigned messages from hardware located within their enclosure. The moment you click 'send' your message will travel at the speed of light to our snail server where it will await collection by a snail agent.


    Once associated with the tiny electronic chip on the snails shell your message will be carried around until the snail chances by the drop off point. Hardware located at this point collects the message from the snail and forwards it to its final destination.

    My old art instructors would certainly approve. This approaches Dada.
    --
    mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
  2. I'm worried... by LoyalOpposition · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What happens if the pigeons eat the snails?

    -Loyal

    --
    I aim to misbehave.
  3. Overhead by JustOK · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Snails? Stupid idea. Too much overhead. They carry their homes with them. Use slugs instead.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109