The Hindu Business Line : A hi-tech bed or LCD movie projector

Hi-tech bed: ‘Starry Night’ has four speakers (seen at 4 corners), LCD movie projector, wireless Internet, temperature-controlled mattress, anti-snore technology and 1.5 terabyte storage.–

Anand Parthasarathy

Bangalore, Jan. 14 ‘To sleep — per chance to dream, aye, there’s the rub!’ said Hamlet, dreading the night that lay ahead. He would have liked the ‘Starry Night’ high-tech bed. It offers such a tantalising range of options to while away the night in comfort, that Shakespeare’s suicidally-inclined hero would well have made up his mind that it was much more fun ‘to be’ —rather than ‘not to be’.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show that concluded last week in Las Vegas is the world’s biggest tech mela and invariably throws up some wildly improbable technologies.

This year the prize for the most bizarre idea must go to Missouri (US)-based Leggett&Platt, a diversified manufacturer who showcased the ‘Starry Night’ — a comfortable super bed that comes with built-in load cells to monitor how its occupant tosses and turns — then adjusts itself to the most comfortable position.

Vibration sensors monitor snoring and change the sleepers head position to open the nose passage. Using Peltier Effect technology, the mattress temperature is adjusted — the two sides separately, in case one’s spouse has different tastes.

But all that is for those who want to sleep. If that is not what you have in mind, the Starry Night also doubles up as an LCD movie projector with speakers in the four corners and a 3-metre wide screen on the opposite wall.

There is built-in wireless Internet, with a keyboard (the wall doubles up as the monitor screen) — and the full functionality of Windows Media Center.

To store a year’s worth of movies, music and video the bed incorporates 1.5 terabytes of hard disk storage.

The asking price — between $20,000 and $50,000. But as so many of us say: “I’d give anything for a sound night’ssleep!” Now we know what ‘anything’ means.