British stamp enthusiasts should be lining up with their smart phones at Royal Mail post offices by now. The nearly 500-year-old Royal Mail is the first post office to embed a readable code into one of its stamps. Of course, post offices have been using bar codes and more sophisticated data-matrix codes to help them deliver the mail for years, but no one has linked them to online content via smart phones. Til now.
Once you download the right app, you point your phone’s camera at the stamp to see, among other things, a video of actor Bernard Cribbins reading W.H. Auden’s poem “The Night Mail.” It’s full-circle for the poem, since Auden wrote it in 1936 for this short film produced by the Royal Mail. We found it via an old-fashioned process called clicking around YouTube.
There’s a lot happening in the world. Through it all, Marketplace is here for you.
You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible.
Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.
