In 1971, Ray Tomlinson sent the first email ever to another computer. In 2009, a postal service stumbled on this zany concept and proposed a system of paperless mail. San Francisco, Newark and New York are the first cities to sign up for Zumbox, the Suessian-named service that will replace municipal snail mail with this newfangled email thingy.
The actual project is a little more complicated than everyone in town signing up for Hotmail, since the idea is to have a secure mailbox for every address in the country, whether they want it or not.
We're not sure how people without computers are supposed to access the service, but never mind that. Progress can't be held back by slowpokes still stuck in the '60s when email didn't yet exist. This is 1971, man! Live in the now!
Since 15 million pieces of mail are sent out in a single day in New York, the idea seemed like a good one to the mayor, who sees this as a good way to save fuel and some trees, while at the same time confusing old people just trying to get their mail.
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Thursday 08 October
By Heavytoka
As much as I would love to see this work for environmental purposes; I don't see it doing so. There are a ton of people who don't have computers like you said and on top of that not everyone who has a computer has the internet, so unless the government is going to give everyone a laptop and free internet I see this failing.
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Friday 20 November
By Tonia
Yep, won't work.
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