This piece of cardboard may help you sleep soundly on long flights

By Trevor Mogg Published December 20, 2016

If the PowerSiesta sleeping aid looks like a piece of cardboard with some carefully placed fold lines across it, that’s because it is. The team behind the device aimed at helping people sleep on airplanes has designed it to be sturdy, comfortable, and highly portable, so if it actually works, they could be on to something.

With those features at the forefront of this mostly paper rig, and a sales pitch that promises a decent slumber on a long flight, its Puerto Rico-based creators hope the $17 price tag will sound more than reasonable to sleep-deprived folks in need of a nap.

Recommended Videos

Designed by “an actual rocket scientist,” the PowerSiesta takes seconds to set up, forming into a shape that “works with the natural form of your body to alleviate muscle tension, so you can rest more deeply.” Put simply, it’s a cardboard contraption that you rest your head on.

And once you’ve had your soothing sleep, you simply fold it flat again, slot it into your bag, and go about your day.

Up to now, passengers desperate for some shut-eye on a red-eye may turn to something like a regular neck cushion, the Ostrich pillow (or the smaller version), or even this bizarre hammock for your head. Plane-maker Boeing is also well aware of just how bothersome long-haul flights can be for fliers trying to nod off, prompting the company to explore the idea of a harness for drowsy travelers.

But perhaps all those solutions are over-complicating the matter. Perhaps all that’s required is a piece of 100-percent recyclable cardboard. With carefully placed fold lines.

The PowerSiesta, which weighs 11 ounces (0.3 kg) and took two years to develop, recently landed on Kickstarter and is looking for funding to the tune of $35,000 for a May/June shipment date.

To convince people to back the project, and persuade them it’s not a silly idea, the team has grabbed some vox pops from “real people” who’ve used the PowerSiesta for 40 winks, possibly more.

One user who recently tested it on a flight to New York described her PowerSiesta as “super-easy to carry, very lightweight … I went right to sleep, it was super-comfortable and I slept for two hours straight.”

To find out more about the PowerSiesta, head over to the team’s Kickstarter page here.

Contributing Editor

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

Topics

Emerging Tech

Scammers are teaching AI to sound like you, and research says our brains are falling for it

Has your accent just become a security vulnerability? AI scammers are getting too good at sounding local

Scammers are turning trusted news brands into investment traps

The next scam call you receive may not sound like a robot, a call center, or even someone pretending to be your relative. AI voice generators have become capable of reproducing regional accents and dialects that sound convincing enough that researchers are warning they could become a potent social-engineering tool.

For example, a scammer could use an accent familiar to a targeted community to make a suspicious call sound considerably more trustworthy.

Emerging Tech

Scientists found a way to turn plastic bottles into cookies you can actually eat

hand holding a cookie

Plastic bottles and cookies rarely show up in the same sentence, but a team of researchers just gave us a reason to talk about both together. According to Science Daily, scientists at Southern Illinois University Carbondale have engineered yeast that can turn waste from plastic bottles and old crop leftovers into real food ingredients and create cookies.

The work began as part of a NASA program exploring how astronauts might produce their own food during deep space missions, since resupply runs from Earth aren't exactly realistic that far out. The researchers' big insight was simple: plastic bottles are packed with carbon, and so, as it turns out, is food. That single connection became the foundation for everything that followed.

Computing

Students who use AI every day may be falling behind, while moderate users pull ahead

New global testing data suggests more AI in the classroom isn't automatically better.

I assumed more AI access might help students learn faster. However, a new OECD study dispels that misconception for me and everyone else who gave their children a paid version of AI chatbots, thinking it would help them through their educational journey.

According to PISA 2025 data from 760,000 students in 91 countries, students who use AI daily score meaningfully worse on standardized tests than their peers. The full picture is more complicated than a simple ban would fix.