The premise of this test was to see if our modern technology is actually as efficient as we think, and the results proved us slightly arrogant. Carrier pigeons have been used for thousands of years to deliver messages to places far away that needed information faster than humans are able to travel.
Today such methods have become obsolete with the development of cars and the Internet, but perhaps they shouldn’t be discounted so soon. Ten pigeons had USBs attached to their legs and were sent on a roughly two hour, 120 km journey to deliver the file. At the same time, researchers began downloading a 300MB video file.
Surprisingly, by the time the pigeons arrived at their destination, the file had only been downloaded 24%!
Those who carried out the experiment say their purpose was not to attempt to implement carrier pigeons again, but to highlight how uneven the Internet is throughout Britain. In fact, the same experiment was carried out in South Africa with even more abysmal results for technology!
