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Neither rain nor sleet nor snow will keep the U.S. Post Office from delivering your mail--if you've slapped the right postage on it. And soon you'll be able to do just that without ever leaving your desk.
Around year-end, you should be able to purchase and stamp your own mail through your PC, as a new way of attaching digital postage becomes widely available for PC users. This new breed of digital stamps--no glue, no postage meters--allows users to download legal postage 24 hours a day and print directly onto envelopes and labels using a regular laser or ink jet printer.
Officially called the Information Based Indicia Program, the digital stamp initiative was launched in 1996 by the U.S. Postal Service, with the hope of developing a secure and convenient postage process to complement (and possibly replace) the 75-year-old postage meter. The idea was to open up the technology to commercial development, with the Postal Service enforcing security and specific interface requirements. The first prototypes and demonstration...