The manufacturer says that, by projecting a light moving in circles on your bedroom ceiling, this magic egg will make you fall asleep. The Great Zamboni agrees. I have serious doubts. [Techdigest]

If the hat determines the driver's condition to be risky, it relays a warning signal to a computer screen in the cab (and possibly cellphones as the image above illustrates) recommending rest. Apparently, trials of the hat are being credited with reducing fatalities for drivers at CRC Mining from 40 in 2007 to 27 in 2008. Now CRC is hoping that their technology can be made available to all drivers sometime in the near future. [Metro]

Not only does it look super comfy, but I am always losing my iPod when I fall asleep on the train or plane. For $28 I can avoid those lice-ridden airplane blankets and keep my Touch close to me. Too bad it only seems to come in blue. [Patina via Geek Sugar]

Computer scientists at UC San Diego along with Microsoft Research have developed this USB device they dub the Somniloquy, which appropriately enough means "talking in one's sleep." The dongle lets you keep your computer in sleep mode, which saves a ton of energy, while remaining seemingly active on the network. So your computer will be in sleep mode, but you'll still be able to download files or receive IM or VoIP messages, and if an action that requires your computer's full attention does occur, Somniloquy will gently rouse it from its slumber.

The device is actually a very low-power computer, complete with OS and flash memory, and essentially takes over as the computer's presence on the network while the actual computer is asleep. It consumes somewhere between 11 and 24 times less power than a full computer, which makes for some impressive energy savings. The creators are hoping the tech will be incorporated into future network cards so computers have this functionality out of the box. You know what? We're hoping that, too. [PhysOrg via Engadget]

Touted as a "drug free" way to get some Z's, the Sleep Partner supposedly uses varying degrees of pressure to stimulate acupuncture points on the wrist.

Other magical properties include the ability to make $40 disappear from your wallet; as well as the ability to break soon after purchase and never work again.

The marketing materials suggest you don this bracelet 30 minutes before bed so it can normalize your body clock, eliminate insomnia, and knock you out just long enough so the Sleep Partner folks can clean out your place of residence. OK, you caught me. I made up the part about insomnia. [Expert Verdict]

One way to preserve the Phoenix workers' sanity are the harsh blue LED-lit workstations you see here, which are on a wavelength that simulates daylight and fools the body into thinking everything's OK. Researchers from the Harvard Medical School who are using the Mars Phoenix staff as guinea pigs for a study on Circadian rhythms also have them doing pre- and post-shift cognition and "mood" testing.

So if any of this crazy scheduling rings a bell with your terrestrial gig, do yourself right and get a nice big glaring blue LED panel for your cube. You'll feel a lot better. [Space.com]

The commander wakes the child up at 6 a.m., and prompts players to put on the helmet and hit a "roger" button to acknowledge their wakefulness. Then, they are ordered to count to 10 in five different languages: English, Japanese, German, Swahili and Malagasy. At that point, the player is "allowed to take off the equipment and start the day"—wtf?! Didn't Akira start this way? [People.jp via CrunchGear]

You go zzzzzzz, because business hours are over, baby. [Private Cloud]

If you're always fighting with the missus about the temperature, this baby can keep you cool down to 68° or heat things up all the way up to 117° on the other side, immediately ending temperature disputes. There's also 2500-watt surround sound system with four 8-inch subwoofers, Internet connectivity, wireless RF remote that hooks you up with a 1.5TB media server with four gigs of RAM, a docking station for your iPod and a 1080p projector. Who says beds are only for sleep and sex? Hop into this sucker and you may never leave. The catch? Fully equipped, this magic carpet will set you back a cool $50K. [Leggett & Platt]

Of course, there are sure to be some pretty serious consequences to your body if you go without sleep for a week at a time, no matter how awake your brain is. But for pilots going long distances and narcoleptics (who have a lack of Orexin A in their brains, hence the discovery of this drug), it could be quite useful. Not to mention truckers, college kids during finals week, club kids who don't want to take illegal uppers, and World of Warcraft addicts, all of whom would find Orexin A to be irresistible. Don't look for it on pharmacy shelves anytime soon, however. It's just gone through a successful test run on monkeys, but human tests have yet to be done, and once they do the drug still has the FDA gauntlet to be run through, so it's probably still a decade away.

But still! Replacing sleep with drugs! The unhealthy future is now! [Wired]

We'll rate each product with Z's, with five Z's (ZZZZZ) being a complete relaxation-inducing miracle, and one Z leaving us frustrated and tired.
1. Pzizz: Available in either software-only ($29.95) or in a attractively-designed mp3 player ($147), Pzizz talks you into sleep or a nap, but frankly, the voiceover announcer was just distracting. Akin to hypnosis, he coos you into slumberland with a duration you can set, telling you to wake you up at the end, after which an alarm sounds. He seriously says: "Thoughts are just thoughts and not reality," while so-called soothing music plays. Worst of all, he kept mentioning my body, pronouncing it "baw-dee." Maybe with the voice turned off, some sleepers might find the new-agey music soothing, but for me, uh, no. Too distracting. Rating: Z [Pzizz]

2. NeverLate Executive Alarm: I never considered sleeping to be a group sport—until I got married. This sophisticated $59.95 clock/radio can handle even the most complicated sleep schedules for two people. You can set seven different daily alarms, different times for different days of the week, and separate alarms for your special someone. It lets you plug in your music player via aux input, and you can augment its weak speakers with your choice of powered speakers out of its headphone jack. It's even sporting a USB port in the back, but alas, only to power devices such as those USB humping dogs; no data transfer. Its reverse backlight was too bright even on its dimmest setting. Even so, if you have complicated schedules, are a power napper or need complete control over your life, this is the clock/radio for you. Rating: ZZZ [American Innovative]

3. Roku SoundBridge Radio ($250) I've tried all kinds of clock radios and alarm clocks, but none are as unobtrusive as this Roku SoundBridge Radio. It does great things, such as connecting via Wi-Fi to your PC and streaming audio from there (but no AAC tunes you bought from iTunes), or playing Internet radio stations from all over the world. But its best feature by far is its ability to slowly fade out its music when you go to sleep and ease into the music the next morning. That, combined with niceties such as kickass sound and a super-easy-to-use on-off/volume control, makes this a big winner and sleeper's friend. If it just had Sirius or XM satellite radio, it would be perfect. Rating: ZZZZ [Roku Labs]

4. Sleeptracker Pro: If you don't mind wearing a watch while you sleep, try this. It works with an on-board motion sensor, and by using proprietary algorithms it can tell if you're sleeping deeply (what researchers call "delta sleep"), or at a lighter stage. You assign it a 20-minute window to wake you up in the morning (or choose up to 90 minutes with this new Pro model), and it picks a time in that window when you're sleeping your lightest to wake you. At the end of that cycle, if it hasn't detected a light sleep cycle within your designated time window, it goes ahead and either awakens you to a vibrating alarm or a noisy one, your choice of one or both. We tested it on two subjects here at our Midwest Test Facility, and both found that it woke both of us up when our bodies were most ready for it, resulting in a more refreshed return to consciousness.

This past month, Sleeptracker introduced this Pro model we tested ($179), and you can now download each night's sleep data onto a PC. It can only store one night's data at a time, so you'll need to download that onto your PC each day. With the included software, you can then see how well you slept last night, statistically speaking. Check it out:

Notice in the six sleep sessions shown here (we tested it for 12), the hash marks indicate a light sleep phase, and the spaces between those marks are the deep sleep phases. We found it fascinating to see how well we slept all graphed up in front of us like that. That's right, the one who gets up at 6am is me, and all because of you fine readers. On one of the days, i got up at 6 but set the alarm for 10, and the result was wakeful dots added about every 8 minutes while I was working. So there it is, proof that I am indeed awake while writing!

This Sleeptracker actually works, picking just the right time to wake us up every morning. I also liked its quiet vibrating alarm, waking me up without disturbing my lovely wife. And, it's a kick to see exactly how well you slept, downloaded into your PC (sorry, no Mac version yet). No, the Sleeptracker's tricks can't totally make up for getting just six measly hours of sleep, but it made me feel way better than waking up to the SCREEE-SCREEE-SCREEE of ye olde clock/radio. Rating: ZZZZZ [Sleeptracker]

The design comes from Korean company Design Fingers but there's no word on availability. Popgadget helpfully point us to a similar product on Amazon though, if you really must get your hands on something like this. [Popgadget]

Personally, I found face-planting on my desk during class in high school to be a fairly effective way to powernap. And by powernap, I mean sleep through the entire period. Which is pretty much how my powernaps at Giz work. – Matt Buchanan

Product Page [via Geeksugar via UberGizmo]