Genetically Modified Pigeons. 5 times the size of your normal homing pidgeon. Bigger, stronger, faster and able to carry more over longer distances.
These birds can be bred in small numbers (any breeding strictly controlled of course) for use in areas such as Central Africa, Siberia and so on, as a means of relaying information from one place to another.
The Pigeons would be able to carry Floppy Disks/Digital Video from a reasearch team to a central base. Ideal for locations where there is no landline phone network or mobile phone network. Each beastie could be tracked from 'home' via satellite thanks to an chip beneath the skin.
Although the pidgeons would have to be trained to find 'home' everytime they moved to a new area, I reckon these would be handy until the advent of cheap satellite phones that are able to handle high speed data transfer.-- Kettch, Jan 11 2001 IP over carrier pigeons ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1149.txtThere's also one (rfc2549) for IP over carrier pigeons with quality of service. [reece, Jan 11 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] p-mail http://news.bbc.co....1321000/1321176.stmBaked. "...transfer rate equivalent to about 0.15bps..." [hippo, Jan 11 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] Migratory coconuts http://www.dribbleg...trange/love-nut.htmLike this one, cp? [StarChaser, Dec 30 2001, last modified Oct 21 2004] A cheep network...-- StarChaser, Jan 11 2001 ...with beak and off-beak hours...-- blahginger, Jan 11 2001 Could they carry a coconut from Africa to England? If I ever move to England I'll want to be able to get such a horse easally.-- badoingdoing, Jan 12 2001 ...roaming charges measured in birdseed...-- hippo, Jan 12 2001 If you crossed them with geese wouldn't that mean that the network is down?-- blahginger, Jan 12 2001 ...and as for the bill...-- hippo, Jan 12 2001 Those who get into this business early could really feather their nests...-- jetckalz, Jan 12 2001 These annotations are getting rather fowl...-- PotatoStew, Jan 12 2001 Be thankful there's a poultry amount of them.-- bookworm, Jan 13 2001 World Wide Webbed feet-- Detly, Jan 13 2001 ...5 times the size... yummy!-- Alcin, Jan 15 2001 Data Migration only possible during the winter-- hippo, Jan 15 2001 ...network outages likely on August 12th...-- hippo, Jan 16 2001 even for a flight of fancy this is getting to be a bit of a turkey...-- Urania, Jan 18 2001 Yes, it is a bit hard to swallow.-- PotatoStew, Jan 18 2001 Anyone hawking an idea like this must be having a bit of a lark...-- DrBob, Jan 18 2001 ...or in need of tweetment.-- hippo, Jan 18 2001 ...a raven lunatic...-- PotatoStew, Jan 18 2001 ...better hatch a plan to get this system flying before people start parroting the idea...-- blahginger, Jan 18 2001 If you really want portability, why not start with EggsML?-- Uncle Nutsy, Jan 18 2001 When establishing network routes, toucan give your network some redundancy...-- hippo, Jan 19 2001 All this talk is fine, but the idea will never get off the ground unless someone has a flamin' go at it...-- DrBob, Jan 19 2001 ..and get the backing of some vulture capitalists...-- blahginger, Jan 19 2001 To test the idea someone should write an emu-lator.-- hippo, Jan 19 2001 (Pigeon) Pie in the sky-- thumbwax, Jan 20 2001 Unbelievable link, hippo. It offers hope to half-bakers everywhere.-- DrBob, May 11 2001 This anno added merely to get this one back in circulation. The posts are great.-- bristolz, Dec 29 2001 Well, they're OK, bris, but I think that they could do with some mynah adjustments.-- DrBob, Dec 29 2001 I just can't kea in on a good pun.-- phoenix, Dec 30 2001 African pigeons or European pigeons?-- cp, Dec 30 2001 [Rods Tiger] Shouldn't that be Auk-Kestrel?-- TimHighfield, Dec 30 2001 And isn't that African or European swallows?-- StarChaser, Dec 30 2001 Nope, never heard of a homing swallow, whether African or European. Perhaps you could try migratory coconuts, though.-- cp, Dec 30 2001 <see link for migrating coconut.>-- StarChaser, Dec 30 2001 Not quite what I had in mind.-- cp, Dec 31 2001 What is the potential baud rate of a homing pigeon network?-- RayfordSteele, Dec 31 2001 Cygnet, a fledgling network.-- bristolz, Dec 31 2001 hello-- scotty2, Nov 05 2002 is that a c bird?-- po, Nov 05 2002 The question is:
Would they taste good?
If they did, we could feed them to the hungry.-- DesertFox, May 10 2004 Kiwi pick this one up again? It's not ostrich of the imagination that more can be said on the topic.-- swimswim, Sep 13 2011 I didn't even get a tern.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 13 2011 How do you think I feel? I'll have to wait until they make the se-guel.-- normzone, Sep 13 2011 How's the project going? if you don't get a wiggle on Amazon delivery drones are going to steal your target market.-- Skewed, Sep 09 2021 random, halfbakery