US Wants To Build 'Internet of Postal Things'

dcblogs writes: The U.S. Postal Service plans to spend up to $100,000 to investigate how it can utilize low cost sensors and related wireless technologies to improve the efficiency of its operations. The postal service already scans letters and parcels up to 11 times during processing, representing 1.7 trillion scans a year. It uses supercomputers to process that data. In theory, the postal service believes that everything it uses — mailboxes, vehicles, machines, or a letter carrier — could be equipped with a sensor to create what it terms the Internet of Postal Things. The Internet has not been kind to the postal service. Electronic delivery has upended the postal services business model. In 2003, it processed 49 billion pieces of single-piece first-class mail, but by 2013, that figured dropped to 22.6 billion pieces. In other high-tech postal service news, Digital Post Australia has shut down. It was an attempt to digitize snail mail, but they didn't manage to convince enough senders that it was worth trying.

Comments

Reasons to use Snail Mail

[gurps_npc]

1) Want to be increase the chance it gets read, as opposed to thrown away.

2) Want to send something physical, such as a key. This also includes any letter you think your great grandchildren might want to read some day.

3) Want to send something that you don't want copied/replied/forwarded/subpoenaed in a law suit (A lot more important than you might think).

4) You don't know the recipient's email address.

5) The law says you must (important for financial papers, etc.)

Re:Reasons to use Snail Mail

[ShanghaiBill]

This also includes any letter you think your great grandchildren might want to read some day.

Really? I have a copy of every non-spam email I have sent or received in the last 31 years, all fully indexed and searchable. I have zero copies of any paper letters. For a while, I had a box of letters from my old girlfriends, but my wife tossed those a decade ago.

Re:Reasons to use Snail Mail

[plover]

I wouldn't want to go through gigabytes of anyone else's old giant email archive, not my dad's, grandpa's, or son's. I barely get through my own daily notes. I keep old emails so I can search them, but I don't think of myself as beig so important someday that anyone else will ever care.

But I do still have a few printouts of emails my wife and I exchanged, back when we were dating in 1980. Again, not that anyone else will care.

What is the internet of things?

[kruach aum]

I've never understood this term. It makes no sense as an informative expression, because everyone attempting to use the internet needs a thing to do so. There can be no internet without things. In fact, the internet exists in the connections between things. The "internet of things" is like "the story of words" or "the forest of trees". It means nothing.

Re:simple

[spire3661]

Daily postal service to all citizens is the mark of an advanced society. I dont care how much money it loses, its necessary and dont fuck with it.

First-class mail down but parcels up

[mister_playboy]

Mentioning the decline in first-class mail without mentioning the increase in package volume is highly misleading... but then again, ever since the pre-funding mandate nonsense in Congress there has been a rather obvious attempt to dismantle and/or privatize the USPS.

The USPS *does* need to be reformed, however. The workplace environment created by management is extremely toxic. Safety rules and labor laws are routinely violated and quality of serivce is constantly compromised in order to increase management bonuses. The various postal unions are fighting a losing battle against the abuses and the Hollywood accounting, and the increasing number of "temp" employees is going to weaken the unions' position even more.

Efficiency in operations should not just be a euphemism for barbarism in the workplace. If you want to see the war against the middle class up close and personal, just sign up to be a CCA at the Post Office.

First class letter mail down, parcels are up?

[whereiswaldo]

I receive more parcels now than ever before. Most of my shopping is done online. How is that not good for the postal service?