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Which is more annoying: being struck on the head with a foam-rubber dart or listening to that crazy frog ringtone?

If you chose the dart then talk to Tony Tang and Eric Pattison, two students from the University of Calgary who have developed Dartmail, a messaging service which allows you to shoot your electronic messages directly at your target audience.

How do they do it?

Dartmail is really just a sophisticated version of the messaging system used by Robin Hood, which involved tying a scroll of paper with a message to an arrow. Instead of a bow and arrow, Dartmail uses a toy dart gun and the paper makes way for an radio frequency identification (RFID) tag.

How can a tiny tag carry all that code?

It can't. The tag, which is housed in the head of the dart, has enough capacity to hold a short code, such as the name of a file containing your message. You encode it by waving the dart over a reader.

You then take aim with the dart gun and fire it at your target. Once he's recovered, the victim/recipient waves the dart at his reader and reads the message on his screen.

So what are the drawbacks?

Some experts predict a wave of drive-by spammings. The delivery mechanism is pretty unreliable, too. It requires good aim even in an office and long-distance communications would call for some heavy-duty medieval artillery.

Of course, it makes up for its short-comings in terms of sheer fun. Who knows, perhaps the blowpipe will one day replace the mobile phone?