sleep

One easy way to save a little power and thereby help prolong battery life in MacBook systems is to sleep the display. Unlike a full system sleep that suspends all processing activities, display sleep only turns off the relatively power-hungry display while keeping the rest of the system working, which can extend the battery life during instances where you do not need to view the display. An example of this would be if you are waiting for a large file to download.

The options that are available for doing this depend on the system, and include a combination of hot … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 show:

- Are 4D movies the next big step for motion pictures?

- Warehouse worker jailed for stealing $160,000 from Amazon.

- In the future, your drug dealer will be a printer.

- Apple bows out of program for environment-minded products.

- Louis C.K. and the effort to kill scalpers.

Bathroom break video: Omnicorp Product Line 2013

Video voice mail: Jersey from Mike unintentionally stalks Jeff.… Read more

Bioengineering students at Rice University have designed a $25 sleep apnea detector they hope to test on premature babies in developing countries this summer.

The Babalung Apnea Monitor was designed by Team Breath Alert-- a group of five female bioengineering undergrads as part of their senior year project. The project was inspired by estimates that almost half of babies born prematurely have apnea episodes and that caregivers in developing countries are less able to monitor them in neonatal units due to crowding and limited resources.

The system uses an elastic motion sensor embedded in a strap that surrounds the … Read more

With more than 18 million American adults suffering from some form of sleep apnea, and the bulky CPAP masks being such a nuisance that many of those prescribed it simply don't use it, a small and disposable sleep apnea device approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2008 is fast gaining steam.

Called Provent Therapy, the device is essentially a small patch consisting of one plug for each nostril that is held into place with hypoallergenic adhesive. The tech is simple: each plug provides enough air pressure to keep the airways open throughout the night.

This is a similar approach to Provent's larger cousin, the CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) mask, which also uses pressure to prevent the airways from constricting. But each plug contains a tiny valve the size of a pinhole that, during the exhale, creates enough resistance to provide backpressure. This pressure dilates the muscles that typically collapse in patients with obstructive sleep apnea, causing the fits and starts that interrupt sleep.… Read more

The Remee Lucid Dreaming Mask is worn like a regular sleep mask, but it has built-in LEDs that flash in patterns. The idea is that the sleeper recognizes the lights as visual anomalies, realizes he is sleeping, and then takes control of the dream.

The LED patterns and delay times before the lights trigger will be customizable through a Web site. There's also a dimmer control so the LEDs don't wake you up by blaring through your eyelids.

Remee isn't the first lucid dreaming mask, but it's cheaper than existing options like the $190 REM-Dreamer. Remee … Read more

Omron's Sleepmeter HSL-101 and HSL-001 SleepDesign Lite are the Kyoto-based electronics manufacturer's first sleep-monitoring products.

The HSL-101 has a radio frequency sensor that sends out waves over a roughly 5-foot range. It stands by the bedside and starts scanning once you press the "good night" button.

The device detects body movements such as tossing and turning, as well as breathing. Blankets won't affect the sensor.

The HSL-101, which hits the Japanese market in May, analyses the data and gives you the total time you're awake and asleep with corresponding smiley faces (or sad faces) in the results display. … Read more

Apple has released a small patch to fix a problem a number of iMac users have been experiencing with network connectivity on their systems after waking from sleep. Apparently, after the latest OS X 10.7.3 update, people with iMac systems from late 2009 or newer found that the system wouldn't connect to their preferred wireless network, requiring the user to manually select the network from the Wi-Fi menu.

While not a serious bug, it was a problem that caused a bit of frustration with users. MacFixIt readers wrote in asking about this issue, and while some have … Read more

If you're wondering whether you're too many cups or too many hours into the day for yet another jolt of caffeine, a free app developed by researchers at Pennsylvania State University aims to help.

In building the Caffeine Zone app, professors representing several disciplines relied on peer-reviewed studies to devise a simple formula: those with between 200 and 400 milligrams of caffeine in their bloodstream are in the optimal mental alertness zone, while anyone above 100 milligrams has entered the good-luck-sleeping-anytime-soon zone.

"Many people don't understand how caffeine levels in their bloodstream go up and how … Read more

Sleep-monitoring and wake-up wristwatch SleepTracker Elite, known for its alarm system that triggers a vibrating and/or beeping alarm only when you're nearly awake anyway, has another trick up its sleeve: a free analytics tool that tracks a user's sleep data over time.

The idea is that SleepTracker Analytics, which the company unveiled today for Mac and PC, will encourage users to cut out sleep destroyers--caffeine, alcohol, a generally gloomy outlook on life--by visually charting the effect these bad habits have on a good night's sleep.

Once downloaded, you connect your watch to upload sleep data to your personal Analytics account and check out details such as when you went to bed, when you woke up, how many minutes throughout the night your sleep was interrupted, and your resulting sleep score on a scale of 1 to 100.

A company rep says that previously SleepTracker users only had access to software that evaluated one night's sleep, with users being able to manually input notes such as whether they drank caffeine late at night. Being able to track sleep patterns over time seems like an obvious tool for those trying to make actual lifestyle changes.… Read more