A music and science lover has revealed that some birds can store and retrieve digital data. Specifically, he converted a PNG sketch of a bird into an audio waveform, then tried to embed it in the song memory of a young starling, ready for later retrieval as an image. Benn Jordan made a video of this feat, sharing it on YouTube, and according to his calculations, the bird-based data transfer system could be capable of around 2 MB/s data speeds.

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[–] 72 points 1 year ago (10 children)

2MB/s / 16Mbps is enough for 4K HEVC video and audio. In theory you could encode a full movie with enough starlings.

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  • [–] 52 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    And they say physical media is dead!

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    The average lifespan of a starling is usually between two and five years.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    This just gave me an idea for a new movie rental service. You'll never own anything. If we can get homing pigeons to learn movies, we could cut delivery costs

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