Slashdot : Carrier Pigeons’ Bandwidth Quantified
“A well documented test took place in the north of Israel, in presence of several dozen Internet geeks and experts. During the test, 3 homing pigeons carried 4 GB (gigabytes) for 100 km distance, achieving, what apparently looks as pigeons’ world record in data transfer to a given distance. Bandwidth achieved by the pigeons was 2.27 Mbps…Transferring a similar volume of information through a common uplink of ADSL line would have taken no less than 96 hours…”
Original technical specs are here and here.

Typically, Google is ahead of the game and already uses a similiar technology for optimising its search results. This is just the latest in a string of incredible innovations from the Googlemeisters.