Interesting Product: Sleeptracker

The Sleeptracker is an alarm clock that monitors your sleep stage and awakens you only in the most wakeful moments of REM sleep. You set a target time just as with a traditional clock, and the device picks the optimum time to wake you before that target time. Why is this desirable?

Everyone cycles through a sequence of sleep stages throughout the night. REM sleep is the most wakeful-like stage, when dreaming typically occurs. When awoken from deep sleep stages by a traditional alarm clock, we feel very groggy and disoriented. From REM sleep, it is much easier for the brain to wake up.

I don't know how well it actually works, but it sounds like a great idea. It is expensive ($149 and $179 models), which seems reasonable given the technology involved. You can even download your sleep patterns to a computer.