Gotta love this place, Silicon Valley. The latest is a flock of pigeons, outfitted with designer cell phone backpacks, taking to the sky over the region this week.

They'll be equipped with sensors that collect pollution data, which will be related to a blog at www.pigeonblog.mapyourcity.net. The flights occur at 6:30pm. Tuesday and Saturday.

At least we hope they'll fly. We're sure they've been tested out, but we're looking at the size of the backpack (click on image to enlarge), and wondering how much of a runway they'll need. Our colleague John Boudreau has a piece today in the Merc about this project, which is run by someone who admits they are "not trained as a scientist." The device apparently weighs 37 grams, which is lighter than a cell phone (we'd hope so). They're equipped with mobile phone circuit boards, sensors, GPS antennas...

(Photo is courtesy of Beatriz Da Costa, who is helping run the project).