Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Poised between intransigent scepticism and uncritical credulity, it [science fiction] is par excellence the literature of the open mind."
- John Brunner
 |
| Napcap Induction Cap | ||
| A device that aids sleep and relaxation by working with the subject's brain waves. |
It is not clear how this device affects the sleep patterns of the user. In most biofeedback devices, the user interacts in a more conscious level with the machine.
| Fatigue bent her like decades, and she was overjoyed to see the blinking yellow sign of a Napcap rental facility.
A few meager credits remained on her debit card. She would invest them in a decent snooze. She punched her card into the Napcap's slot. The lid lifted and she crawled inside. It shooshed down. The inside received her as a womb... The induction cap was not needed, but it snuggled neatly onto her head anyway. Servos wound their way to their appointed places with automated ease. Premoistened contact points hugged temples and brow. A trickle of entraining current eased her into a deeper slumber... Ordinary human sleep varies greatly in depth and quality, a vestigial remembrance of the time when Homo habilis need to cycle between deep sleep and near waking, lest in a comalike slumber he fall prey to carnivores. In the napcap a client became an instant yoga master, able to stay in the deepest states for hours, increasing the value of each minute's rest manyfold. |
| From Saturn's Race,
by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes). Published by Tor in 2000 Additional resources -
|
I foresee a rewriting of the Christmas classic:
...mama in her kerchief, and I in my Napcap
Biofeedback training seeks to familiarize yourself with patterns in your body's activity that are not normally conscious. A thermometer is a simple example of getting information about your body state that you cannot access easily yourself. Biofeedback lets you learn to change body states; without the feedback, you would be operating blind, that is, without true information.
The napcap, however, seems to be able to impose a sleep rhythm on the user.
The comment about the reason for sleep is interesting, too: there is a lot of discussion about why animals sleep, and whether or not prey animals sleep less than predators. There is a well-established relationship between daily sleep and size; small mammals like bats sleep about 20 hours per day, chipmunks 15 hours. Elephants sleep about 4 hours per day; pilot whales about 5. See The Phylogeny of Sleep for an interesting discussion. See also the technovelgy item cold sleep from novels by Robert Heinlein.
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap..."
Comment/Join this discussion ( 1 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Saturn's Race
More Ideas
and Technology by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
Tech news articles related to Saturn's Race
Tech news articles related to works by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes)
Napcap Induction Cap-related
news articles:
- Nap-Cap - How About A Hat-Tip For Larry Niven?
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation May Provide A Napcap
- Sleepbox Like Niven's Napcap
- Insomnia? Try Cooling Your Brain
| ROAM Robotics Skiing Exoskeleton |
| IRL Glasses Block Screens, Limit Vision To Real Life |
| The Hammock Caravan And Italo Calvino's Octavia |
| Americans! Stay Indoors To Save Energy |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
'... there was enough flexibility to allow for wide variation.
'...a man carried a white rectangular sign, blank on both sides.'
'... electronic, private cash, unbacked by any government, untraceable, completely anonymous.'
'Your Dip digs back into antiquity. Rome. Greece. Dust and old volumes.'
'Then it appeared to make up its mind, and trundled over to a wall socket...'
'... The biological robots were not living creatures.'
'The surveillance cameras can all see it, but then they forget they’ve seen it.'
