The internet is a series of tubes!
The return of pneumatic tubes
Submitted 6 months ago by mox@lemmy.sdf.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/19/1093446/pneumatic-tubes-hospitals/
Comments
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 months ago
qisope@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You’re a series of tubes!
Plopp@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s true! I put a potato in my face hole and it comes out between my butt cheeks. A bit worse for wear but it doesn’t matter.
psychothumbs@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If only we had a series of pneumatic tubes connecting all our homes, you could order something online and have it pop up right next to you minutes later.
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I still want Futurama style human transport tubes
mox@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Like the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel?
IllNess@infosec.pub 6 months ago
No thanks. As long as companies send literal shit to homes, I’m good.
apex32@lemmy.world 6 months ago
you could order something online and have it pop up right next to you minutes later
There are a few companies that want to accomplish that, but instead of using pressurized gas they want to use a miniature subway system.
For example: www.pipedreamlabs.co
Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Carlo@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
I’m pretty sure it’s a big truck, that you can just dump things on.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 6 months ago
A big truck…for dumping…a dump…truck…A DUMP TRUCK!!!
OMG!!! THAT MEANS CONSTRUCTION WORKERS ARE ACTUALLY IT PROFESSIONALS!!! That explains…nothing actually. If anything it raises a whole NEW set of questions.
ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
You could proyget pretty good bandwidth with a tube full of portable digital storage. Latency will suck though.
Wahots@pawb.social 6 months ago
I want more pneumatic tube systems. I don’t care what it’s used for. They are super satifying and analog.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Yeah, what happened to transit pneumatic tubes? I feel like hyperloop was supposed to be close to that, but that never happened.
Make it an attraction, I’ll ride it.
Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
The Hyperloop was very successful, it prevented billions of dollars of investment in mass transit, then evaporated before it could reduce the market for cars.
RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Pressure failures is what happened to transit tubes. Usually with grisly results.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I want one to get beer from the fridge to the couch. I could move the fridge next to the couch, but if a pneumatic system is an option, I assume I don’t have to explain which would be the better choice by a land slide. Cool beers on the couch, in the garden, in the bath tub, etc. I could fire my wife.
Of course I’m joking, I would never exchange my wife for a pneumatic tube system. I don’t have a wife.
MonkderDritte@feddit.de 6 months ago
That’s why:
As computers and credit cards started to become more prevalent in the 1980s, reducing paperwork significantly, the systems shifted to mostly carrying lab specimens, pharmaceuticals, and blood products. Today, lab specimens are roughly 60% of what hospital tube systems carry; pharmaceuticals account for 30%, and blood products for phlebotomy make up 5%.
I initially thought it’s because of IT-security and the hospital hacks.
NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The look on her face says “ah, shit. Here we go. Just another day with all these fuckin’ tubes”
fubarx@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Some Costcos still have them. Used to send checks and cash to the back office once they hit a limit. Guessing not so much any more.
macrocephalic@lemmy.world 6 months ago
We used to use them for the same thing in Kmart (Australia) when I worked there 20 years ago. They were used to clear the float so you didn’t have too much cash in the register. Now that 90% of transactions are on card I bet they don’t use them anymore.
crystalmerchant@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I remember seeing these Costco tubes as a kid in the 90s. Thought it was the coolest fucking thing, the vertical pipe going up from each cashier and making a maze of pipes all heading somewhere on the ceiling
motor_spirit@lemmy.world 6 months ago
angry beavers had me convinced these would be ubiquitous so this is great news. stoked
pickleprattle@midwest.social 6 months ago
I mean… Bank drive thru, too?
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Literally never seen one of those outside of movies.
prograhammingdev@lemmy.prograhamming.com 6 months ago
Have seen them in all of my regional banks in my area.
histic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Weird there isn’t a bank by me without one
autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] 6 months ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where the main character, Winston Smith, sits in a room peppered with pneumatic tubes that spit out orders for him to alter previously published news stories and historical records to fit the ruling party’s changing narrative.
“The pneumatic tube system of communication is, of course, in use in many of the downtown stores, in newspaper offices […] but there exists a great deal of ignorance about the use of compressed air, even among engineering experts.”
Electrical rail won out over compressed air, paper records and files disappeared in the wake of digitization, and tubes at bank drive-throughs started being replaced by ATMs, while only a fraction of pharmacies used them for their own such services.
It just makes too much sense to not do it,” says Cory Kwarta, CEO of Swisslog Healthcare, a corporation that—under its TransLogic company—has provided pneumatic tube systems in health-care facilities for over 50 years.
As computers and credit cards started to become more prevalent in the 1980s, reducing paperwork significantly, the systems shifted to mostly carrying lab specimens, pharmaceuticals, and blood products.
Steven Fox, who leads the electrical engineering team for the pneumatic tubes at Michigan Medicine, describes the scale of the materials his system moves in terms of African elephants, which weigh about six tons.
The original article contains 1,689 words, the summary contains 230 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
nucleative@lemmy.world 6 months ago
When I was young I remember that banks often had large drive-thrus with pneumatic tube systems at each car stall. They’re only be one teller but they’d serve quite a few lanes.
If you wanted a cash withdrawal, you might put your ID and your withdrawal slip in the tube, and a few minutes later it would come back with cash in it.
It was pretty rad. But ATMs seem like a better bet overall.
Lantern@lemmy.world 6 months ago
TUBES!
jqubed@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The headline is a bit wrong: the tubes don’t seem to be returning, it’s mostly talking about an industry they never left: hospitals. They are fancier now, though.
Alphane_Moon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, I was curious what new use cases were being deployed; was disappointed not read about this in the article.