Monday, November 18, 2013

Sleep Mask Could Help You Control Your Dreams


The ability of flight is something that everyone has dreamed of. Teleporting. Shooting lasers from your eyes. Shooting plasma beams from your hands. All of these fantasies have been on everyone's mind at some point in their lives. The only place we have been able to perform these incredible feats is in our dreams. Some of us also have huge breakthroughs in our dreams, whether they be musically, artistically, or scientifically. Some even come up with their best marketing and business pitches in their dreams.

There is a specific term for this action.It is a term called "lucid dreaming". Lucid dreaming can be defined as one being aware that they are dreaming while the dream is happening. The act of lucid dreaming is said to take quite a bit of practice to induce but can lead to the ability to somewhat "control" your dreams after seeing certain signs in your dream that makes you self-aware.

There is now a new product that will be able to help those with the ability to lucid dream and make it a bit easier for some and even help with those wanting to learn how to do it. The new Remee Sleep Mask is a sleep mask that uses light patterns to help you learn to become self aware that you are dreaming. Now there are a bit more specifics on to how the sleep mask actually works.

Taking from another sleep mask, already introduced and developed by Stanford University, called the NovaDreamer, the duo of Duncan McCloud Frazier and Steve McGuigan at Bitbanger Labs decided to reference LED response system during the REM (rapid eye movement) period of sleep. This light will penetrate the dream allowing the dreamer to become aware that they are, in fact, dreaming. The Remee Sleep Mask, however, comes with 6 red LEDs, six on each side, weighs only .9 ounces and has a flexible circuit board that sits in the mask. The LEDs are programmed to any specific pattern via Remee's website, and are designed to alert the dreamer (still dreaming) that they are awake. The user then becomes more familiar with the LED pattern and learns to start to control their dreams after becoming self aware.

There has to be some purpose as to why so many want to be able to lucid dream, or why it has become so popular. And, in fact, there is a purpose. It is said that lucid dreaming is an excellent way to access the most creative channels in your subconscious. This could be extremely beneficial for the businessman in marketing trying to come up with the perfect creative way to sell their product, or a designer to come up with the perfect concept on how to make what they have been trying desperately to create but just couldn't quite place his or her finger on it. Perfect for the artist or musician trying to write that perfect hit. This product could easily be used for any person trying to come up with better ideas with creativity.

The Remee Sleep Mask is available now for only $95 and is considered to be the cheapest lucid sleep induction mask on the market currently.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

SilentSense Phone Security

A few days ago I wrote about the new iPhone 5S Fingerprint Scanner and how it could really help with security and how well it (should) work. Well any victory like that in technology can only be short lived. There will always be someone to challenge and try to outdo the competition. So who will it be this time and what are they going to do to try and compete with the iPhone 5S new security feature? It is a variation of a sensor called SilentSense

This software is being worked on by the geniuses over at Cornell University. It has been deemed to be effective more than 99% of the time. With numbers like that, it could easily become a top contender in the security game for mobile phones. While the researchers did claim that the program was running on Android OS and not iOS, it is still plausible for one to think that this could be integrated onto iOS without too much effort. The way it it works is by "exploiting dynamics from the users touch behavior bio-metrics and the micro-movement of the device by the user's screen-touch actions". Now this basically means that the software provides data, subject to the user, based off of your finger movements and how you manipulate the device while using it.

All in all, this software seems more secure than the fingerprint scanner. But then again, even though it sounds better "on paper" it's still in the works.  We really wont be able to fully tell until both of these security measures are put against each other side by side.  We will see how this "SilentSense" works against the Fingerprint scanner when it finally comes out. The idea of the phone "knowing" your movements, and thus recognizing you as the user is a very cool concept. Be on the look out for more information regarding this software coming soon.