Products & Gadgets

For light sleepers

Millions of people have trouble falling asleep each night, which is why LightSleeper was created.

Developed in the United Kingdom, the product's makers say it can help a person fall asleep and also help a person fall back to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night.

LightSleeper works by projecting a soothing light onto the ceiling while the person is lying down. The idea is to watch the light, because the circular motion of the light has a relaxing effect.

One of the advantages of the product is that it won't disturb other people in the room. The product is portable and will switch itself off after 30 minutes to save power.

The LightSleeper is expected to go on sale next year at a price of about $200.

A quiet alarm clock

People who become upset at having to wake up each morning to a noisy alarm clock will welcome a product designed to wake you up without making noise.

The Philips HF3490 is a wake-up "light alarm" clock that slowly and gradually increases its light to wake you up gently. You can also choose FM radio, natural sounds or even music from your iPhone or iPod to accompany the light feature.

The product has 20 different brightness settings, which also allows you to use it as a bedside lamp.

Its "dusk simulation" function was designed to help you fall asleep by gradually dimming light and sound.

The product is available at Amazon.com for $199.99

Built-in projector

Digital camera makers in recent years have tended to upgrade their products by increasing image resolution, making the devices smaller, or by adding features that sometimes no one wanted.

But Nikon this time is offering a breakthrough, combining digital cameras and projectors. The Nikon COOLPIX S1000pj has a built-in LED projector that is capable of projecting your images or movies onto any surface. The projector sports a 10-Lumens brightness and will run for about one hour on a battery charge.

As the world's first camera with a built-in projector, the product also features a 5x wide-angle Zoom-NIKKOR glass lens and a five-way VR image stabilization system.

The product is now available from authorized Nikon retailers worldwide for $429.95.

Get your true colors

Photoshop features a pen that will copy the color settings of what you are monitoring onscreen to use as a color in your program.

Now an off-line product allows you to pick a color when not using the computer software.

The Color Picker is a concept pen that can scan colors from and mimic that color for drawing.

After placing the pen against an object, the user just presses the scan button. Color sensors inside the pen relay information to an attached "RGB" cartridge, which then mixes the proper proportions of red, green and blue to produce the desired ink color.

(China Daily 12/14/2009 page4)