Snail Email Laughs at Speed-Focused Technologies

One of the key capabilities of any email client is the speed with which it delivers messages. This feature is already so common that people choose their favorite email clients by keeping in mind things like storage capacity, design, security level, etc. A team of researchers at the Bournemouth University decided to bring a smile, if not to change altogether the perspective of postmodern email, by having it delivered by live snails.

The animals are equipped with a radio-frequency identification chip that allows the writing and reading of emails whenever the snails go past an electronic reader. To begin with, snails are "loaded" with a message that someone requests to be sent. In order for that message to be finally delivered, those slow little things have to get within the range of a reader situated in the opposite corner of their tank. Eight snails are responsible with the delivery - with the most effective one, known under the codename Agent 007, having managed to deliver the message in 1.88 days. The others had not delivered, at the time of writing, any messages.

"One thing technology promises us is speed, acceleration, more of everything in less time. [...] All we are doing here is creating a physical and biological interruption to this flow, and we hope that by doing this we might also interrupt for one small moment our understanding of communication, allowing us to explore notions of time. It may even enable us to take time rather than lose it." said Paul Smith, one of the Bournemouth University research fellows who initiated the project.

The RealSnailMail project was begun by the Boredom Research team in order to participate to the new media and computer graphics conference SIGGRAPH 2008. By the time the event starts, the team hopes to have sent as many messages as possible. Anyone can try the eccentric email service, although you have to be fairly warned that it can't be held responsible for messages being loss or delayed.