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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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VeriSign, ICANN Square Off Over DNS Root more similar news »
As the U.S. government starts the process of closing a major net vulnerability, two longtime net infrastructure rivals -- the non-profit ICANN and for-profit VeriSign -- are battling over who will compile and verify the net's most important document. Internet experts give the nod to ICANN and bring up VeriSign's greedy past.
Wired.com
Fri Oct 10, 2008 more from this source»»
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