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Power Ascender: Ballsy Tool Yanks People, Equipment up Walls more similar news »
What it is: Atlas Power Ascender
What it's used for: Rapidly pulling people and their gear up the side of a building or canyon
The prototype of the Power Ascender was not easy to use. The battery-powered, waist-mounted climbing assistant yanked people up a dangling rope at a blistering 10 feet per second — almost 7 mph — fast enough to snap their limbs back. So Atlas, a company run by four mechanical engineers outside Boston, set the maximum speed to a more reasonable 5 feet per second and added a variable- speed trigger like on a power drill. Now customers — such as US military personnel — simply clip the 25-pound device onto a climbing harness, push any nonbraided rope through the top, and let it fly. Inside the gizmo, a network of grippers scurries up the line and ensures that it threads cleanly out the side. The Ascender's 10-kilowatt output can lift up to 350 pounds, which is no easy task. "Having that much power that close to your crotch is a huge engineering challenge," says Atlas' Bryan Schmid, "and frankly a bit risky." Sounds pretty ballsy.
Wired.com
Sat Oct 11, 2008 more from this source»»
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Ubuntu's Balancing Act more similar news »
Open Enterprise: "Once it emerged that Google ran on GNU/Linux, there could be no more argument about the latter's suitability for the enterprise. Similarly, MySQL's adoption by just about every Web 2.0 company meant that it, too, could no longer be dismissed as underpowered."
Sat Oct 11, 2008 more from this source»»
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eCryptfs: Single-File Encryption in Linux more similar news »
DevX: "Yet many developers try to build their own cryptographic technology, which often gets them in trouble. A better approach is to employ tools that rely on proven cryptography techniques and algorithms. A great example of this approach is eCryptfs, a complete cryptographic file system for Linux that essentially is a robust implementation of mature cryptographic technology."
Sat Oct 11, 2008 more from this source»»
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