Looks like Telkom, South Africa’s leading Internet service provider is facing some unexpected competition. Recently, a homing pigeon named Winston had beaten the Internet in a challenge to transfer data from one place to another. Employees at a South African call-center business who were maddened by the persistently slow Internet speeds made use of an 11-month-old homing pigeon strapped with a memory stick to transfer 4 gigabytes of data between two of its offices, just 50 miles apart.
Surprisingly, Winston, the pigeon emerged as champion and both timings were of a vast difference. It took Winston approximately two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds to reach its destination. On the other hand, a concurrent ADSL download had managed to move around 100 megabytes (4 per cent of the total), a far cry from the carrier pigeon’s.
The financial services company, called Unlimited Group, which is based in Durban, said it does not have any plans to abandon the broadband service and embrace the use of homing pigeons.
The Egyptians and the Persians first used homing pigeons to deliver messages from a location to another 3,000 years ago. They also were used to proclaim the winner of the Olympics. Messenger pigeons were used as early as 1150 in Baghdad and later by Genghis Khan.
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A 747 full of hard drives is still by far the fastest way to move data. That's why Google Research Datasets (before it got cancelled) was going to get data into and out of the system by couriering drives, and Amazon still offers this option.
Before the internet and computers Americans didn't do so well either! Once these societies find need of further development they certainly will partake! Just like Cadillac cars and Corvette road racers are uncommon there, American hegemony reigns supreme when a boy or girl in America takes pride in faster internet and better land line communications than people more concerned with good medical care, if any, and handfuls of rice to fill their empty tummies! Even books are scarce in many parts of the world! America has a glut of goods and a decided lack of educational prowess! go figure! Fed well, access to the best books, tapes, videos and teachers, Americans prefer gaming on very specialized and expensive computers, rate 32nd in the world in schools, porn shows for the adults and illicit drugs for all! Go smoke pot Yanker Doodle, we the poorer nations especially Asians are catching up, and soon! We will eat your lunch if you are not careful!