Nightmares and gadgets

Zzzzzzzz: A new gadget tracks your sleep patterns via a wireless headband that you wear to bed.

The Zeo Personal Sleep Coach promises to improve the quality of your slumber by gathering brainwave data, which presumably will show your level of agitation during that recurring dream about the work project due tomorrow that you haven’t even started.

More gadget news: The Car MD tells you why the “Check Engine” light appeared on your vehicle’s dashboard.

The unit costs about $100. But if you’re on a tight budget, you can make the Check Engine light go away with about 1 cent’s worth of strategically placed black electrician’s tape.

Don’t put him the dishwasher: The summer movie season gets under way Friday with “Iron Man 2,” once again starring Robert Downey Jr.

In it, Iron Man is attacked by rust after a long battle in a driving rain storm, and must be coated in lard and re-seasoned in a 300-degree oven for two hours.

— Mark Carlson, Herald staff

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