To prove this new technology and improve our civic profile, Safety-Flo has volunteered to make nearby Otisburg the world’s first hosed community. Needless to say, town residents are excited. Meanwhile, the airnet data center beneath the R&D building continues to push the known limits of compressed air storage technology: in March the research team announced they had succeeded in storing nearly seven kilo-bytes of information for over an hour. A separate team is working on retrieving the information.

*A kilo-byte, equal to 1000 bytes, would cover several small pieces of paper if we used an eight letter alphabet. The number of pieces of paper that could be diverted to other uses should represent a useful environmental advantage at some point in the future.

How it works

Essentially, each airnet user will have a unique three digit (eleven byte) “address” composed of a series of timed bursts of compressed air, called a PERP locator. To direct a message to a particular user, your message will be prefaced by a “header” with the recipient’s PERP locator, followed by the message, followed by your PERP locator. In this way the recipient knows whom to respond to, should he desire to do so.

This series of burst patterns will travel through the hose network, being amplified and redirected by each node it encounters. Each node will contain a set of pattern filters (perforated steel baffles) that will try and match the destination PERP locator with a known profile. In this way the message should reach its destination, provided the burst signal holds its strength over the hose distance travelled (HTD). Current HTD limits are about 10 feet, using monaxial 2 inch diameter hose. Greater efficiencies are predicted as development and funding continue.