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I'm Drew Breunig and I obsess about technology, media, language, and culture. I live in New York, studied anthropology, and work in advertising technology.

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The Sleep Light 'Breathes' 

In July 2002, Appled filed a patent for a “Breathing Status LED Indicator” (No. US 6,658,577 B2). They described it as a “blinking effect of the sleep-mode indicator in accordance with the present invention mimics the rhythm of breathing which is psychologically appealing.”

I started college in 2002, which meant all of my friends were suddenly living in small dorm rooms where they and their computers slept. Myself and most of my friends with Macs were creeped out by this light at roughly the same point. We started breathing in rhythm with the light as we fell asleep. It was hypnotic, organic.

Which, apparently, was exactly their intent.

The light wasn’t bad. But being confronted with the half-asleep notion that there was something organic in your room when you knew it was inanimate was unsettling. At the end of the first quarter, most of us had taped over the light to obscure the glow.

Source: floodlite

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