UK's Royal Mail Launches First Intelligent Stamps

An anonymous reader writes "The Royal Mail on Friday issued what it called the world's first 'intelligent stamps,' designed to interact with smartphones using image-recognition technology. The Royal Mail's latest special-issue stamps, devoted to historic British railways, are designed to launch specially developed online content when a user snaps them using an image-recognition application available on iPhone or Android handsets. 'This is the first time a national postal service has used this kind of technology on their stamps and we're very excited to be bringing intelligent stamps to the nation's post,' a Royal Mail spokesman said in a statement. 'Intelligent stamps mark the next step in the evolution of our stamps, bringing them firmly into the 21st century.'"

Comments

Barcodes

[sakdoctor]

2D barcodes designed to be read by a phone, largely for marketing purposes, have been in use in Japan since forever.

Also, this is pointless.

Stamps for how long?

[CRCulver]

Except for philately (marketing to collectors is a somewhat lucrative way to raise money for postal services), are not stamps with nice designs on the way out? Go to the post office in many countries today, and what you'll get on your letter is a simple sticker printed by a computer with a bar code or other machine-readable images. The recipient of your letter in another country no longer gets an exotic representation of some facet of your country's culture.

Re:Stamps for how long?

[Jesus_666]

In Germany we still have stamps (although they're self-adhesive now). However, business mail often uses either barcodes (for packages) or alphanumeric codes or DataMatrix barcodes in the envelope's window. I think that's a good split; you still get nice stamps for personal mail but business mail can use much more efficient ways of franking their mail.

Oh, we do however have stopped putting stamps on packages; those have a standardized adhesive label and are paid for directly at the post station. But at least the letters remain.

Re:Stamps for how long?

[KingAlanI]

the fancy word for "stamp collecting", nothing more.

Intelligent stamp, or phone?

[DamienRBlack]

It's kind of the phone that is providing all the intelligence, right? I mean, you have to dig pretty far before you can call an image intelligent.

Help

[dandart]

So... how will putting phone-scannable barcodes on stamps actually help? And what do I need it for?

There's an even higher tech kind of mail

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a kind now that you can send right from the iphone and it gets there instantly without a stamp or envelope, and it's free.
I think that's kind of more high-tech than a stamp you can take a picture of.

Personally...

[gilesjuk]

I just wish they would stop wasting money on such gimmicks and actually bother to deliver the mail correctly. I received someone's birthday card a while back, the house number was a match for mine but the rest of the address wasn't close. Was in the same town of course, but rather than ruin someone's birthday I hand delivered the card myself.

So to sum up, the Royal Mail can't even be bothered to deliver until after noon and it seems like they now are employing people who can't even be bothered to deliver to the correct address.

But hey, they have "cool" stamps.

Re:Personally...

[Anonymous Coward]

Before you rant at your postman about this, you should realise that the sorting office are responsible for this sort of mistake. postmen pretty much just look at the number on the envelope as they have to average 5MPH or something to do their rounds on time.

The problem lies with Royal Mail outsourcing their mail sorting to employment agencies who employ temp workers. Temp workers on minimum wage don't really give a toss about sorting your mail properly.

The whole system sucks, and it's ridiculous that they're spending money on gimmicks like this when their service is so unreliable. Our company use UPS or TNT whenever possible.

How much did this cost?

[mr_lizard13]

It's a shame Royal Mail have spent lord knows how much on this useless gimmick whilst cutting back the number of deliveries and driving up the cost of stamps year on year.

Their job is to deliver mail. Once they get that right, and start booking profits and reinvesting that cash back into the network, then fine, let them make as many gimmicks as they like.

That time isn't now.

In the US...

[KingAlanI]

Physical stamps are still quite available, but the postal clerks use number-and-barcode labels, particularly for items with an unusual postage charge (if it's a standard letter [44c], for instance, they might just grab a 44c stamp from the drawer, but if it's something like $2.63, they'll print out a barcode label rather than dig for exactly $2.63 worth of stamps)

There's also click-and-ship (print shipping labels online), which essentially combines a computer-printed address label with barcode postage. [I like that because it saves the trouble of handwriting addresses and customs info, can be done from home at my convenience, and it's a few percent cheaper as well.]

Poor attempt to be cool with the 'new thing'

[mindwhip]

To interact with the stamp, a user needs to download the Junaio application, available from the iPhone’s App Store or the Android Market, the Royal Mail said. This can then be used to snap an image of the stamp, which triggers a short film of English character actor Bernard Cribbins reading W H Auden’s poem, “The Night Mail”.

So let me get this right...

1) Buy stamp with one of 6 pictures on it
2) Download App onto your phone using part of my monthly quota (and possibly have to pay for the App as well)
3) Using the App have it recognize one of 6 images (remember Google goggles can manage images of tons of things...)
4) Use the phone to download and read/listen to some web content using more of my quota on the tiny screen and low quality speaker

Seems complex and expensive when it could be

1) Put a short and easy to remember web address of the content on the bottom of the stamps and maybe some posters in the Post Office (the few that are left)
2) Type the address into my web browser on my PC with big screen, good speakers and unlimited use...

Or

1) Go to local library, borrow book for free with many poems including the one relating to the stamps on it and read while enjoying the sunshine...

Sometimes technology is not the answer you have been looking for

Cool but self-marginalizing.

[Shag]

Okay, I like trains, and would probably check out the content the first time I got a letter with such a stamp on it... but the second time? No.

And who thought of the GREAT idea of linking postal stamps to online stuff? "Hey, old chap, let's do something that reminds our customers how little they actually need us!" :)

If the Royal Post delivered things in a timely manner, didn't randomly go on strike all the time, and had "tracking" that actually tracked beyond "...and then we gave the letter to another country's post, and we have no idea what happened next," it'd be a lot more useful.

Re:Cool but self-marginalizing.

[dissolved]

I am not a postman but come off it, they're not "randomly" going on strike they are fighting for their working practices (whether you agree/sympathise or not is another matter altogether). Also how is it the Royal Mail's fault for what happens when packages go outside of the United Kingdom? They can give best endeavours tracking but are totally at the mercy of La Poste or whoever it's gone to.

Cute idea, but...

[Freddybear]

Why not incorporate a QR-code symbol in the stamp? That would work on almost any phone without requiring special apps.

What is this supposed to accomplish?

[NivenMK1]

Making an over-glorified bar code analog into a stamp which allows one to easily be linked to content is just a worthless ploy to generate revenue, as each time a poor yob scans one, they will likely make more off the resulting page hit (Thanks Advertising!) than they will from the sale of the stamp less the cost of delivering the letter.

I would wager that if someone has a phone which is capable of reading these "intelligent" stamps, they most likely know how to get more information than they wanted dealing with conceivable topic which a stamp could express in less time than installing the software to read the stamp.

Just the name screams marketing ploy and literally adds nothing to an infrequent, inconvenient, but occasional legally useful way of sending typed or written communication.

Re:Stamps not so smart.

[clone53421]

I came here to say the same thing: The stamps are not smart any more than a barcode is smart or a book is smart or a painting is smart. “Smart” implies the ability to process information, not just the ability to store or convey information.

The phone that can snap the photo and recognize the stamp may, arguably, be called smart. The stamps are not smart.

You spelled 20th wrong

[DrSkwid]

I thought they were going to be RFIDs or something like that