Bytes: What’s new in tech
Electricity-generating kites are a novel approach to harnessing wind power, said Deena Theresa in InterestingEngineering.com. Germany-based Kitekraft carried out autonomous testing last year of its “flying wind-turbine power system,” consisting of a large kite—the wingspan stretches to 33 feet—equipped with rotors that harvest wind energy as it soars in a figure-eight pattern. “A tether that attaches the kite to a small ground station transmits the electricity.” Kitekraft’s system uses far less material than today’s massive wind towers. However, “winds are often strongest” at higher elevations, and the kites also need to be bigger to handle that. The company is working on a 65-foot model that can produce five times the energy (500 kilowatts), enough to power about 375 typical U.S. homes.
Limiting workplace surveillance
California lawmakers have proposed a bill aimed at regulating workplace surveillance technologies, said Allison Levitsky in Protocol. “The Workplace Technology Accountability Act, or Assembly Bill 1651,” would ban the use of surveillance software that incorporates facial recognition, gait, or AI-powered “emotion recognition technology.” Employers would also have to give advance notice to workers about any tracking, and would be prohibited “from monitoring workers on their personal devices or after hours.” With the growth in remote work, surveillance technologies have multiplied as employers seek to keep an eye on productivity through software that can “track keystrokes or mouse movements, watch which programs are open on a computer, and record how long workers stay on a website.”
Silk Road creator’s surprise windfall
A portion of a massive trove of Bitcoin seized by the government will be used to pay debts held by Ross Ulbricht, the imprisoned creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace, said Andy Greenberg in Wired. In 2020, the Department of Justice seized 70,000 bitcoins from an unnamed hacker who had breached the security of Silk Road, the vast online drug market. Last year, “prosecutors quietly signed an agreement stipulating that a portion of the stolen bitcoins,” now valued at around $3 billion, be used to pay $183 million in restitution owed by Ulbricht, who waived any claim to the rest of the seizure. It’s a surprising turnabout for the dark web entrepreneur who tried to secure a pardon from former President Trump; while his restitution is now paid, he remains sentenced to life in prison.
Devices to monitor your sleep
Wearables that track your sleep can offer useful information, said Chris Velazco in The Washington Post—if you know what to look for. The most immediately helpful data these gadgets provide is your total time asleep, and “seeing those numbers spelled out can help you recognize” your sleep habits. “But do we really need know how many times per minute we breathe while we sleep?” We might, sleep experts say, but only if we track the data carefully over time. Some gadgets can monitor heart-rate variability monitoring, or HRV. Counterintuitively a lower HRV is generally a stress indicator, and checking for “dips in HRV at night may help you suss out habits and practices you should cut out during the day.”