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The Future of Stamps
New submitter Kkloe writes: Wired is running a profile of a gadget called Signet, which is trying to bring postage stamps into the age of high technology. Quoting: "At its core, it is a digital stamp and an app. If you want to send a parcel, you'd simply stamp it with a device that uses a laser to etch it with your name and a unique identifying pattern. After that, the USPS would pick up your package; from there, the app would prompt you to provide the name of the person you're trying to reach." I'm curious whether such a finely-detailed etching can even survive a journey. How far can you expect it to travel before all the handling and sorting make the mark unreadable to the sorting machines in the delivery office? Then you'd have to worry the post office would mark it as a fraudulent stamp (as someone has to pay for the shipping in some way) and either return it or throw it away.
The main problem with electronic stamp creation currently is the lack of a postmark date stamp from the postal service. That means that the item can be lost for any length of time without any accountability, just lost in the machine.
i can't remember the last time i mailed something. maybe once in 2012.
Shipping companies already do similar things with bar codes etc. So to the question in the summary, yes it should be fine. To the general idea, why? What's wrong with a QR code or a bar code?
Maybe it's just me, but I feel the future of stamps is going to be a world that doesn't use stamps. How much mail do you really send that you are still buying stamps? I realize lots of businesses still send things out usps, but they are probably printing their own postage at this point anyway and not using actual stamps.
When I send a package from the post office here, they weigh and measure it, determine the price for the postage, and print a sticker with that amount on it. They slap the sticker on the package and that's all there is to it.
I don't remember the last time I sent or received a package that had real stamps plastered on it. Letter mail sometime does, and letter mail that I send out always does since I purchase a roll of stamps once in a while for that purpose. But not packages.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
What does this provide that a postage meter doesn't? He also seems to think the USPS should spend billions retooling how they sort mail.
This post got me wondering, I'd imagine faking stamps would be relatively easy to do.
I'm not sure why we should invest much time moving "stamps" into the digital age. Does anyone expect the Post Office to even exist, ten years from now?
No one sends physical letters anymore. Almost all of my bills can come electronically, directly to my bank. Doctors offices and medical clinics seem to be one of the few holdouts... and even they seem to be moving online now.
#DeleteChrome
The article is about parcels.
Why re-invent the printer just to stamp a package? All of the major shipping companies let you print out a shipping label already. As for the other stuff, such as having the shipping company look up an address, that can all be done with software provided there's enough incentive to develop it.
Can you etch it in wax?
I can envision a custom mark and a unique postage shipping ID.
They managed to solve a problem that already has an answer, how innovative.
So I'll need the Laser stamp thingy *and* a smartphone app just to send a letter? Ya, that's much better.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Your missing the true mission of the post office. There are a lot of retailers who have very important messages to send you!
Just because you don't send physical objects anymore does not mean everyone else does not. The cynical part of me sort of thought this was going to be sponsored by the USPS, as another last ditch attempt to get people to mail more things, to stave off its eventual demise. While its true that the Postal Service is dwindling to store flyers and political ads in the digital age, I dread the idea of them shutting down, simply because when it comes right down to it, If i need to send something, they have the quickest, simplest, and most user friendly meatspace interface of all the carriers. (there is no FedEx office in my town, and the UPS office is open to customers for literally 1 hour in the afternoon).
Apparently, the objective these people seem to have is to actually bring back sending things to one another, which they claim is sort of a cultural touchstone we have lost in the digital age. To quote them "when was the last time you received something someone else actually touched?"
Sure, its sort of hippy-dippy, but there is sort of a visceral enjoyment that comes from receiving a physical package or letter, and their goal is to make sending things supremely simple. I actually like the idea myself, but I doubt that it will get implemented without either starting their own carrier, or a deep partnership with one of the private carriers. I suspect The USPS is to mired in political crap to adopt this.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
Ok, for a bit of reference, I was a rural mail carrier for awhile. And from being a carrier and talking with fellow carriers after being one I can tell you people don't really send much first class mail anymore. The USPS is now basically converting into the last mile run carrier of packages, both originating from their system and both Fedex and UPS's systems. The local post office I've worked at has at times not been able to handle the sheer volume increase of packages. Now, if people want to ship packages, they can already print their own postage off their computers so this device does nothing for that (and there's plenty of bulk label creation systems for larger shippers which is what I do now). The other fairly large user of the USPS is advertisers using bulk mail rates and they won't use a device like this since they already have permits. So I see little use for this.
IDK how it is in the US but here in Poland the post is like an institution. Fe. if you have an invoice or legal paper you can send deliver it yourself, you can send it by private held company like TNT, UPS, whatever but only when you send it via Polish Post (national operator) it gets so called the power of postal stamp. Legally if you choose the right delivery type it is valid as delivery in court. Such postage is still deeply embodied in legal system and I think it has some merit. In Poland f.e. you could run a company and register its address for legal purposes as PO box in some large office complex where you just rented a PO box. In case of this special Polish Post delivery it is an obligation to the office complex administrator to deliver this postage physically as he gives the PO boxes to his clients he also has an obligation to deliver such postage.
I think Post Office isn't going anywhere and lots of people still send physical letters due to legal conditions and I don't think it is Polish only thing. Also people tend to send faxes. F.e. I was required to send signed legal papers via fax (snail mail would take longer but was also an option) when we was changing our DNS owner information due to company name change. This is silly but still it has some silly merit.
But as for the gadget in the article - laser postal stamps? It sounds quite cool but it makes no sense as in no real purpose. People who use snail mail en masse tend to have agreements with their posts to bulk send it with stamp or pre-printed stickers or pre-printed envelopes. In some countries to obtain a "stamp" to send an letter you just send an SMS to paid premium number and in reply you get a number which you just write on the envelope/card. In Poland you can get fancy stamps with your design on it etc.
(I've used to work at Polish Post IT department head office)
bulk mailers use franking machines which have internal counters that the post office uses to bill according to the number of times the machine has been used to issue a letter, and/or prepaid envelopes with printed postage, and for those who don't want or need that kind of expense, physical stamps that they use to apply the proper postage charge prior to dispatch. Also works for occasional posters.
Why fix what ain't broke??
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
The envelope or package that’s been sitting there for days, unsent.
The post office already allowed people to print up their own custom stamps for an extra fee. It bombed.
And there's no way that anyone is going to buy a laser etcher when mailing things is becoming obsolete.
The Canadian government has already told people that mailing payments will cease over the next few years.
Additionally, home delivery of the mail is being ended to most of the population. It's already stopped for 1/3 of the population, and the other 3rd that don't live in apartment buildings will be stopped over the next few years. Why the exception for apartment buildings? Because it saves Canada Post the cost of building and maintaining public mailbox collection stands.
There are plenty of competitors for parcel delivery - Canada Post already owns one of them - Purolator Courier.
The only things I've mailed this decade are registered mail - which requires a visit to a postal substation anyway. The post office is going to be dead before BSD.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Just because you don't send physical objects anymore does not mean everyone else does not.
That's a straw man. I send physical objects several times a year. When I do, I use UPS or FedEx because the Postal Service sucks at it. My expectation that the USPS will die does not mean package delivery has to die with it.
USPS's bread and butter has historically always been letters and bills. Nowadays that is rapidly drying up, so their bread and butter has become delivering advertisements to our houses. We don't really need to maintain a government funded agency for advertisement delivery.
#DeleteChrome
The Royal Mail in the UK has been selling stamps online for some years. Tell then the weight/size of your letter or parcel, pay the postage cost and you can print an address label with bar code. The only thing is you generally have to post it within a couple of days.
Your missing the true mission of the post office. There are a lot of retailers who have very important messages to send you!
Which is, of course, an excellent reason to finally kill off the USPS. The only worry I have is that these retailers will not be deterred and will most certainly try to find new ways to send their oh so imprtant messages to us.
you had me at LASER
I've now seen the future of mail and it's full of sharks, sending junk mail.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
> If you want to send a parcel, you'd simply stamp it with a device that uses a laser to etch it with your name and a unique identifying
> pattern.
Right now, if I want to send a parcel I just need stamps. I don't even have to lick them any more. Should I buy that laser contraption just to send parcels? I am no luddite, but this is a bit preposterous for people who send parcels only occasionally.
Me, I'm still trying to sell the item in the first place.
You can already print your postage at home, on any printer. So, they're adding an expensive but fancy way to print and some kind of nebulous destination locating service. Oh, and an App. I forgot, everything is brand new it you tie it to a smartphone app.
You can fax legal documents and keep the fax header as proof of service.
A quick search shows that the state of Utah allows alternate service by email or social media. A judge allowed the FTC to serve notice via facebook. New York allowed email service in 2006, and Australia allows it, and anther New York case of service via facebook was discussed on slashdot last month.
The old ways are dying. Requiring someone to buy a laser device to burn "stamps" onto envelopes and packages won't work.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
This is pure advertising for the design house. The concept is fanciful and relies on the wacky conceit that we all have packages sitting around the house that we'd like to mark with a personal identifier logo and send without even knowing where it's going to be sent, how much it'll cost to send it, when it'll get there. The design centers on this wooden laser device that is 0.000001% of the system, and I'll bet the vast majority of the work went into making the touchy-feely acoustic guitar paying videos that hype the concept, designed to emulate the advertising of some fruity computer company.
The use case shown in the video, a gift, completely ignores the fact that in order to acquire a gift, I'd have to buy it first, so wouldn't I just have the store send it to my friend? Shouldn't this in be a box that'll handle the rigors of shipment without being damaged, or is it just fine to leave a gift box that any shmoe on the street can open and paw through before my friend opens the now-empty gift box?
Pffffft. Isn't this already built into my phone? Why can't I just scribble something - anything onto a box, take a picture of it with my phone, and have the same effect without the stupid wooden laser thingy that I have to keep charged just in case I have the whim to send a gift to a friend? The answer is that this is a design firm that wants to design stupid little wooden laser thingies and is trying to sell you their services.
Let's create a brand new type of stamp and launch a taxpayer-funded initiative to upgrade every sorting machines. It'll only take a gazillion dollars, not be completed in any reasonable amount of time, and eventually abandoned.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
> You can fax legal documents (...) the state of Utah (...) New York allowed (...) Australia allows it [cnet.com], and anther New York [etc.]
But you are you aware that lots of other countries than USA or Austrialia exist and such even tend to have precedent or non-precedent legal systems? I know that general tendency is to go to electronic means where possible but I am quite sure that there still are and still be situations in which the new/current ways are not possible and you need to keep the old system running to support them. For example how do you deliver legal papers to inmates who cannot use email or Facebook?
> Requiring someone to buy a laser device to burn "stamps" onto envelopes and packages won't work.
This I fully agree. The idea is so stupid I don't even know how it got here to Slashdot.
I have a toll transponder in my car so I can drive through a toll lane without worrying about stopping or paying in real time. I have a Clipper card in my wallet which allows me to use any public transit in the Bay Area in the same manner - just tag at the turnstile or on the bus. Both devices refill themselves from my credit card, which has a high enough limit that I'll never have to worry about not being able to pay for tolls or transit.
Why can't I put something on a letter or package which identifies me and, when scanned, simply deducts the proper amount of postage from my account? No prepaid labels that have to be canceled/refunded if not used, no people fraudulently photocopying the labels, no need for a scale or worry about how accurate the scale is, and if the account is empty and the credit card doesn't work, the package can set in a warehouse until the account owner corrects the deficiency.
While its true that the Postal Service is dwindling to store flyers and political ads in the digital age, I dread the idea of them shutting down, simply because when it comes right down to it, If i need to send something, they have the quickest, simplest, and most user friendly meatspace interface of all the carriers.
Well, I guess you are one happy customer. My experience has been that they regularly flood my mailbox with crap junk mail; without fail they reliably deliver that stuff. On the other hand, they have a much more spotty record actually delivering personal letters addressed to me by family and friends (which typically only happens a couple of timees a year). The last time this happened I went down to the local PO to complain and was greeted with a shrug and told sometimes the mail carrier makes mistakes. Umm, yeah. Perhaps you guys really should be more conscientious delivering the mail I actually care about?
The one reservation I have about actually doing away with the USPS entirely is that it would undermine an important provision in the Constitution that the federal government was setting up a means of ensuring that everyone had access to an affordable means of correspondance with others within the USA. Chucking out the USPS might undermine this essential freedom leaving the ability to communicate one's message on a national level solely the preserve of those with lots of money and connections. Just think about the implications of that for a moment and be very afraid.
Currently to send a letter I:
1. Put a stamp on the corner.
2. Write down the address where I want it to go.
3. (Optional) put one of my return address labels on it.
Their method
1. Have one of their laser burners put a 'stamp' on the envelope.
2. Pull up an app and scan my 'stamp'
3. Tell it where to go (either through my contacts or by manually inputting it).
I don't see how this is 'simpler'...
We don't need another 'stamp' (alreadying being done multiple ways) but the fears in this /. article are also unfounded and based on a lack of understanding of how the US Postal System operates. The stamp gets read at the start. Once it is into the system it is fine.
Exactly. In the U.S., many federal and state laws assume that the United States Postal Service will be there. Furthermore, the day the item is postmarked is, for most legal documents, considered to be the day the court receives it. Thus, if you have to have something filed by a certain date, you can delay (like most people do) and wait until the absolute last minute, run to the post office, and get a manual postmark put on the envelope, the only way you're going to get a guaranteed legible one in the U.S. Furthermore, courts rely upon the postal service to deliver legal mail. Federal courts allow you to file legal paperwork (as well as get copies of it) online and some state courts are slowly moving in this direction, but there will always have to be a way to get a piece of paper to someone who is a luddite or, is in jail or prison and does not have access to the Internet, and vice versa, since Americans have a constitutional right to access to the courts.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
Because... lasers are freaking cool. Postage etched with lasers. How long before a postal worker turns the lasers on everyone on the room?
Requiring someone to buy a laser device to burn "stamps" onto envelopes and packages won't work.
This I fully agree. The idea is so stupid I don't even know how it got here to Slashdot.
You must be new here. (checks uid) Nope. Oh well, welcome to our new DICE overlords :-(
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Why not just use an RFID tag with a standard format. People can buy a pack of RFIDs and be invoiced back when the packages arrive at their destination.
Will that be the point where it's illegal to mail anything annomonously?
This can't be real. It must be some sort of government testing program to see if the people are stupid enough to herd into death camps yet.
You can print postage for packages from the USPS site itself, via Stamps.com, and since a good percent of the packages being sent just via USPS are eBay stuff flying back and forth, you can print off the paid shipping label on eBay/PayPal itself. You can even still use stamps for packages under 13 ounces without having to drop it off at the counter.
Damn near every post office in the country has an APC machine where you can have a package weighed, type in the zip code it's going to, it prints the postage sticker, and you drop it in the chute where it drops behind a wall so no one can steal it (the part in the video where the moron left the lasered package on the front step to be picked up later actually had me laughing -- what gated community does that moron live in?). The APC will also just sell you stamps -- and the USPS has it's own 'store' on eBay where you can have stamps delivered to you. Plenty of grocery stores sell stamps too.
Want a non-government shipper? The UPS and FedEx have places everywhere, and where they don't there are plenty of small mailing service shops that will gladly let you pay and hand them the package, and the UPS and FedEx stop by at least once a day and pickup everything.
As for the "don't have to know where the package is going, just who it's going to" -- that's utter bullshit. Packages are real things that have actual locations in spacetime, and pushing the knowledge of where that damn package has to go back to some app provider, is simply not a real problem for the vast majority of people. Everyone sleeps somewhere, and usually most of the time in one place -- it's called "home" and that's where you send it. Or to 'work' if the person prefers that -- and if you don't know that much, why the holy fucking hell are you sending them anything? Unless it's rattlesnakes and you're trying to kill the ex-spouse when you don't know quite where he or she has run off to to escape you. Plus, you can only send packages this way to someone else who's signed up for the app, unless *you* provide their address... which if you have that what's the point of it all, again?
This isn't even an item that serves no purpose, it makes doing the supposed activity MORE complex than it already is. The only use I can see for these things are strapping them to the heads of ceramic sharks as novelty gifts in tourist trap stores.
Damn, make a wood and brass Fleshlight holder, and you'd have a better and more successful product.
Thats just it, we don't fund it. While it is mandated by the constitution to exist, and overseen to some degree by congress, which is why postage has barely crept up, because it is locked to the inflation rate, and can only be pushed beyond that with approval from a regulatory commission. So the postal service is required to fund itself. While congress has occasionally allotted certain funds towards the postal service for special situations (related to disabled and overseas voters mainly) It is meant to be a self sufficient agency of the government. Honestly, the fact that I can sent an envelope full of paper from Florida to Alaska for less than a dollar describes a hilariously broken system, and highlights the fact that the reason the postal service operated at a 4.8 billion dollar loss in 2012 is because the cost of mailing anything has been kept artificially low. I cant FedEx *anything* for a dollar. If the USPS could operate with a pricing scheme that was commercially viable, then it would not have these problems. And of course, having working capital would probably open up new avenues to expand and develop greater service. the USPS is basically any other carrier, only wearing a gimp mask and chained to the governments desk.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
The use case is sending a letter when you have a wifi connection is already handled. See: gmail.com for more info
There are four types of stamp uses and realizations mostly used in public. For adverts, they print a tag on the advert. For business letters with these little windows, they print it in the address field. For parcels you can print out a sheet and glue it in a parcel. And for the personal letter or postcard you mostly use lovely designed stamps. As I already have a printer, why shall I buy a device for stamps? And by the way I can even send an email to the post office and they will make a letter out of it including stamps. What is now the correct advantage of this new device?
In Switzerland, we have a system where you send a text message and get back an alphanumeric code. You just write that on your envelope and you're done.
It's a one-time pad so it's 100% secure (no fraud) and it doesn't require high tech lasers. I really don't understand the point of "bringing stamps to the age of high technology". The system is perfect.
So are the postal workers sharks with lasers on their heads that burn stamps? Or do you get a tank with a shark with a laser on it's head to burn the stamps? I'm confused.
Why is Snark Required?
To send a letter or package in Denmark you Text a 4 digit number with how much postage you wan't
They return a 4x4 integer grid which you then write on your letter where you used to put the stamp.
The postal service scans this during sorting and as long as the value matches the weight it gets sent.
1235
4356
7543
3456
I used this server that lets you print stamps - here I thought this was a great idea. Here is where it falls down:
Its not owned by the post office
They scam you into paying monthly fees for things
Most people are too stupid to print envelopes....its amazing that they can print on regular paper.
Instead of paying less because you're exactly being charged for things, it may cost more due to fees.
Horray for Permanent Stamps!
For lettermail they're fantastic. You buy them, and their value is "whatever the rate for lettermail is". No more confusion for those who only send mail a couple of times a year when you're hunting for the right postage in your junk drawer.
I cant FedEx *anything* for a dollar.
Of course not. Thanks to the Private Express Statutes, FedEx can't legally deliver ordinary letters unless USPS postage is paid on top of its own delivery rate. The system is deliberately set up such that no one can compete effectively with the USPS.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I won't have it with silly ideas TVtag did it as well and it didn't work out as planned they only made more enemies but the Post Office now absolutely ridiculous! ðY-ðYðY
While at the same time, by undercutting everyone by miles, the USPS is assured its eventual collapse. So I guess Postal Service Reform would be a decent platform to run for office on?
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
The post office is not being operated in the red because mail is cheap. It has to do with their outdated updated pension rules.
Millions of people preserve history beyond just postal history by collecting and categorizing postal stamps from all over the world. These new digital stamps are as horrible as postage meters, they destroy not just a past time for many, but also eradicate an incredible means of documenting and preserving history.