Hasta La Gadget!

When you think of postal mail, you don’t necessarily think of it as high tech. That’s something Australia Post is changing with their Video Stamps, which makes letters – or more specifically, the stamps on them – more interactive. How? By embedding videos into the stamps.

If you think about it, stamps are the perfect size for QR codes. So that’s exactly what Australian Post did with their stamps.

Senders can record clips that are 15 seconds to twelve hours long (yeah, I wonder what events or messages would warrant a video that’s half a day long). The recipient can then view the video by scanning the code using their smartphone. If they don’t have one, then they can enter their unique message code and view the clip on the Post Office’s website.

Video Stamps are currently available for free with Australia’s Express Post and Express Courier International products.

[via C|NET]

If you still like print photography and frequently send friends and family snapshots, then you might want to get a Stampede. It’s basically a large, pre-inked rubber stamp that transforms your photographs into postcards instantly.

There’s just something different about sending and receiving an actual photo in the mail, rather than just checking it out on a computer screen or a mobile device. All you have to do is grab a photograph, ink the Stampede, and stamp it onto the back of the photograph. It’ll instantly be stamped with all the stuff that postcards are printed with: address lines, the divider, a space for your handwritten message, and of course, the box where you’re supposed to affix the stamp.

Stampede is currently up for funding on Kickstarter, where a minimum pledge of $50(USD) will get you one of your own.

With the advent of E-mail and online bill payment, I don’t find myself buying postal stamps very often. But I guess I should at least keep track of what sort of collectible stamps are being made, since I’ve managed to miss out on some cool designs over the years. For example, back in 2007, the US Post Office issued this cool Yoda postage stamp.

Yoda U.S. Stamp via catwalker / Shutterstock.com

He almost looks like the holographic Yoda from the end of Return of the Jedi. I’m actually surprised that nobody ever mailed me a letter with Yoda on it. And now that the cost of a First-Class letter has gone up to 46 cents, you’d have to add on another 5 cent stamp if you even tried.

On the plus side, you can still find these collectible stamps for sale over on Amazon for about $16 to $20 for a sheet of 20. I wonder how much postage it would take to mail a First-Class letter to the Dagobah system.

We do have our concerns when it comes to protecting our identity online these days, but on the other hand, one cannot remain too protective or coddled up. If you are concerned that your personal information on a printed piece of paper, such as name, address, Social Security number, bank account numbers, the mistress’ phone number – anything that you deem was necessary to be included on the print at one point in time but is no longer needed, then the $19.95 ID Guard Stamp would certainly come in handy.

The ID Guard Stamp is an amazing little stamp which is said to be able to mask all personal information, including the above mentioned – and anything else which has been written or printed that you would like to cover up. This is made possible thanks to a specially designed, indecipherable, permanent ink pattern that will jumble up confidential information which has been printed on mail, checks, magazines, and letters among others. No longer do you need to shred mail, tear off magazine covers, or rip up checks to help prevent identity theft – although if you have hundreds of pages of sensitive information, the paper shredder is still the most important and efficient tool. Each inkpad is said to offer up to 1,000 impressions.

[ ID Guard Stamp copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]