An article on BBC News shows how E-mail and snail mail united are bringing mail to inaccessable areas of India.

Post offices in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh will take a customer's handwritten letter and computer scan it. Then the letter can be e-mailed to remote, high-altitude post-offices in this Himalayan region.

From there, the e-mails are printed out and then taken by hand to their destinations - many of which are located in almost inaccessible mountain areas such as the Lahaul, Spiti, Kinnaur and Pangi valleys.

This isn't exactly a new idea though... the US Army used a similar concept during WWII. Letters sent to service men were actually miniaturized and placed on micro-fiche. Then the smaller more compact letters were sent over seas and printed out for the service men. Doing this actually cut the weight of mail down signifcantly.

UPDATE: Chris Sells caught this story as well and has suggested a new service for the USPS that he would be willing to pay for... and frankly so might I. Filter out all my junk mail for me, and then take the good stuff, scan it, and email it to me. Sounds like a winner!