Sandman's little helpers
Why haven't computers, gadgets and the Internet improved the one thing most of us could do with more of -- quality sleep?
After all, according to the U.S. National Sleep Foundation, "more adults are experiencing sleep problems on a regular basis." Three-quarters of Americans report having at least one symptom of a sleep problem a few nights a week. This figure has been steadily rising, from 62% in 1999.
Given that this huge number of people yawning over their breakfasts represents a sizable market, you'd think the gadget industry would be salivating in its sleep. But, surprisingly, there are thin pickings. Yes, there is the usual array of fancy radio alarm clocks, such as the beautiful eton ego 4000+ CD/MP3/radio-playing alarm clock ($150 from
www.etoncorp.com); the Muslim-friendly, mosque-shaped range of Mosque Clocks (about $19 from
www.mosqueclock.com); or the $70 Royal T140 travel alarm clock from Royal Consumer Information Products Inc., released last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which tries to improve your mood by wakening you to the sight of a slide show of up to 56 digital photos of, the company suggests, your family.
The T140 may make being awake more bearable (depending on how well you get on with your family, I suppose), but it doesn't guarantee you'll actually wake up. Most people either ignore their alarms, hit the snooze button repeatedly (often in their sleep) or else grab the offending clock and throw it against the wall.
Efforts to overcome this problem have been inventive, but rarely successful, says Gauri Nanda, a 26-year-old graduate student in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. "Just last week a man told me he currently uses three alarm clocks and then asks his friends to hide them," she says. Ms. Nanda's solution: an alarm clock called Clocky (soon to be released by her company Nanda Design via
www.clocky.net for $50 or less), equipped with outsize wheels and shockproof covering (early prototypes are wrapped in brown shag), that goes off and then, when its snooze button is pressed, skedaddles across the room and hides, requiring owners to get out of bed and find it. By the time they have, the thinking goes, Clocky has done its job because they're out of bed and wide awake, if a little frustrated.
It's this frustration that another inventor, Lee Loree, is addressing with a device called SleepTracker. Mr. Loree, a 32-year-old investment banker, came up with the idea of SleepTracker in 1999 after incurring his wife's wrath by waking her up one night. Given she had woken up and chatted with him amiably enough half an hour earlier, Mr. Loree was somewhat surprised by this response and decided he would do something about it. For most of us that would involve not waking one's spouse again unless they were actually on fire, but Mr. Loree reached a different conclusion. What if there were a device that could wake people up at the optimal time, so they felt good (and presumably then didn't try to strangle nearby spouses)? The SleepTracker was born.
Given that Mr. Loree's knowledge of sleep didn't involve much more than working in an investment bank and waking his wife up, he gathered an elite team of sleep researchers, including a radiologist and a sleep expert with a doctorate degree, to study his long-suffering spouse (who must by now have regretted opening her big mouth). This involved installing equipment in the bedroom to monitor Mrs. Loree's sleep patterns, connecting wires to her and videotaping interviews to gauge her mood when she was awoken. Asked what his wife made of all this attention, Mr. Loree acknowledges that "it sounds kinda creepy out of context -- staying up all night, watching her, taking notes, trying out the prototypes, sitting in the closet so the room was dark so I could monitor her." A reflective pause. "You have to be to be pretty understanding to let somebody do that."
Luckily, it seems, Mrs. Loree was, because they are still together and SleepTracker has been on the market for nine months. It takes the form of a wristwatch, not that displeasing to the eye (if a tad geeky). Mr. Loree abandoned early ideas of measuring brainwaves or eye movement, instead focusing on gauging simply when and how often the wearer moves during sleep. These periods of movement vary from person to person, but they nearly always take place in the lightest stages of sleep. The idea behind the SleepTracker is to wake you up at some point then -- within a window of 30 minutes or less around the time you've set for your alarm. It won't make you sleep longer or improve the quality of your sleep, but it will wake you at the optimum moment. "If you hate your life, you get four hours of sleep, are on crystal meth and drink a lot, SleepTracker can only do so much for you," says Mr. Loree. "But if you make a concerted effort and you want your life to be better, then it can absolutely work for you."
I've been using it and would have to say it has potential. When it has woken me up I've felt that strange sensation of already feeling almost awake, which is what it's supposed to do. At $150 it isn't a steal. But as the first product I've seen that tries to marry usable technology with the real-world problem of waking us up in a better condition to face the world, it might well be $150 well spent. Oh, and in case you're wondering: Yes, Mrs. Loree does use one. Anything, I suppose, for a quiet night's sleep.
瞌睡虫的小帮手
电脑、新奇电子产品，还有互联网，为什么不能改善一样我们人人都需要的东西──睡眠质量？
毕竟，美国国家睡眠基金会(National Sleep Foundation)称，“定期出现睡眠问题的成年人更多了”，四分之三的美国人都说自己每周总有几个晚上出现某种睡眠问题。这个比例从1999年的62%开始逐年递增。
这么多人每天坐在早餐桌边哈欠连天，由此可见这个市场的规模相当可观。你可能认为小型电子消费品行业自然会对此垂涎三尺。不过，令人奇怪的是，目前这类产品为数并不多。当然，市场上的确有一些新潮时尚的闹钟，比如说Eton出品、漂亮可人的4000+ CD/MP3/广播闹钟(
www.etoncorp.com标价150美元）；面向穆斯林教徒、外观酷似清真寺的Mosque Clocks（
www.mosqueclock.com标价19美元）；还有Royal Consumer Information Products Inc.在上周拉斯维加斯电子消费品展(Consumer Electronics Show)上推出的Royal T140旅行闹钟（70美元），它能连续展示56张数码照片。该公司称，这款闹钟旨在改善人们睡意朦胧、刚刚睁眼时的情绪，可以选取56张家人的照片。
T140可能会减轻大家挣扎起床的痛苦（不过也要看你和家人关系如何），但并不保证你就能醒透。大多数人要么对闹铃充耳不闻，连续按消音键（往往还迷糊著），要么乾脆抓起闹钟，狠狠扔到墙角。
麻省理工大学(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)媒体实验室(Media Lab)26岁的毕业生歌丽?南达(Gauri Nanda)说，这些尝试都很有创意，但很少能够成功。“就在上周还有人跟我说呢，他现在要用3个闹钟才行，还得让朋友把它们藏起来。”南达女士给出的一条解决之道就是：Clocky闹钟（即将由南达的公司Nanda Design推出，
www.clocky.net标价50美元或更低）。闹钟两侧各有一个轮子，外壳有防震功能。一旦按下消音键，闹钟就会滚到地上，满屋子乱转，你就不得不爬起来把它抓到手。那时，你不用想也知道，Clocky已经胜利完成了自己的任务，因为你不但爬了起来，还醒得透透的，也许难免有点儿沮丧。
就是这种沮丧促使另一位发明家利?罗利(Lee Loree)发明了SleepTracker，专门解决这个问题。32岁的罗利曾是一位投资银行家，1999年的某个夜里，他不慎吵醒了妻子，招致一场臭骂。想想她以前也不是没被吵醒过，而且还陪著他款款聊了半个小时，罗利对这顿臭骂有些意外，决定干点什么。为了不吵醒伴侣（除非真的著火了），罗利想出一个办法。要是有个东西能在最恰当的时间叫人起床该多好，这样人们感觉很舒服（应该就不会骚扰身边的伴侣了）。SleepTracker于是应运而生。
罗利自己对睡眠的了解远远比不上对投行业务的了解，所以他就召集了一组专家，包括一名放射学家和一名拥有博士学位的睡眠研究专家，来研究他遭受长期困扰的妻子（她这会儿肯定已经为那天晚上的大嘴巴后悔死了）。研究小组在他们的床上装了一套设备，监测罗利太太的睡眠模式，还在她身上接了各种导线，每天她睡醒的时候都和她聊几句，看看她当时情绪如何，并且都录了下来。罗利自己也承认，这听起来有点疯狂──整夜整夜不敢睡，看著她，做笔记，测试原型产品，坐在壁橱里过夜，这样才能让整间屋子都保持黑暗，让妻子沉睡，自己还能做笔记。他在回忆里停留了片刻，“你必须非常非常善解人意，才能允许别人在身边做这一切。”
看来，罗利太太就是这么善解夫意，夫妻俩到现在仍然很亲密，SleepTracker也已经上市了9个月。它的外观酷似腕表，更好看一些（如果你不觉得有点儿怪异的话）。罗利放弃了最初的几个点子，不测试睡眠时的脑电波或眼睛的动作了，而是更简单更直接地监测人们在睡眠期间何时会动、怎么动。虽然人各有别，但这些动作几乎都发生在浅睡期间。SleepTracker会在预设的闹铃时间前后30分钟之内，找个合适的时间叫醒你。它不会让你多睡几分钟，也不会改善睡眠质量，但会找一个最合适的时候把你叫醒。“如果你憎恨生活、每天只睡4个钟头、吸毒酗酒，SleepTracker也帮不了多少忙，”罗利说，“但如果你积极努力，想要生活更美好的话，SleepTracker就能帮到你。”
我也带了一个，应该说它还是有潜力的。每次它把我叫醒的时候，我都有一种很奇怪的感觉，好像本来就要醒了。不过这就是SleepTracker的目的。卖150美元也不算太贵。这是我见过的第一种试图将实用性技术与现实生活难题解决之道相结合的产品，它能选择一个我们状态更好的时间叫醒我们，来面对这个世界，这可比150美元值多了。对了，你可能要问，是的，罗利太太也带了一个。我猜，她恐怕是为了晚上能睡得更好吧。
