Would you buy a hammock for your head?

By Trevor Mogg August 22, 2016

NodPod

Until some genius mind manages to nail teleportation, we’re just going to have to deal the best we can with the discomforts of long-distance travel.

Catching some z’s in a car or an airplane is for most people about as easy as catching a baseball with butter-slathered hands. It just ain’t gonna happen.

Aware that the main challenge with sleeping while sitting is getting comfortable, a Kentucky-based startup has designed the NodPod. Think of it as a hammock for your head.

This simple but possibly effective creation has already blasted through its $20,000 Kickstarter goal and at the time of writing has backing to the tune of $215,000.

Comprising a small slab of super-comfortable memory foam and a couple of strategically positioned cords, the NodPod keeps your head in position no matter what kind of seat you’re sitting in. “That way you won’t wake up with a kink in your neck, or with a bit of awkwardness from sleeping on the person seated next to you,” the company says in NodPod’s promo video.

Nodpod — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The simple-to-use NodPod works with all kinds of seats, including “plane seats, car seats, train seats, and even desk chairs,” though until you find a way of snoozing with your eyes open, it may be hard to convince your boss that you’re actually working and the NodPod is merely helping your “dodgy neck problem.”

The cords fit around the back of any seat, allowing you to position the NodPod comfortably around your chin. It may look a bit daft, but if it means arriving at your destination feeling refreshed, that daftness will be well worth it. Actually, you might want to sling on an eye-mask too in case some devious snapper grabs a shot and sticks it on social media.

Importantly, the NodPod’s cords have been designed in such a way so that on planes they won’t obstruct the seat-back screen behind, which is good because an angry passenger guarantees a sleepless journey for everyone close by.

The cheapest early-bird NodPods have already gone, but there are others available for $32 with an estimated delivery date of November 2016. You can find out more on the NodPod’s Kickstarter page here.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Mobile

Google Maps may soon alert you if your taxi driver goes off-route

4 ways 2020 has changed how i use my tech google maps in hand

Google wants to make taking a taxi a little bit safer. If you've traveled to another country before, you know that it can sometimes be a little nerve-wracking and uneasy getting around, especially if you don't know that country's language or customs. Google is tweaking Maps to make it that little bit safer though -- and has added a feature to Maps that will alert you if your taxi goes off-route.

The new feature is pretty simple to use. Simply open up Maps and type in your destination. Then hit the menu button and tap the "Stay Safer" option. Then, you can tap the option to get off-route alerts, which, as the name suggests, will send a notification to your phone when your taxi isn't going the way it should.

News

Digital Trends’ Tech For Change CES 2023 Awards

Digital Trends CES 2023 Tech For Change Award Winners Feature

CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

Entertainment

AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying

Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."