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Mouth Controlled iPod (VIDEO)
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Just when you thought they had thought of all the new and improved gadgets for your iPod! Now, according to Yahoo.com, “Japanese train commuters who don’t want to reach conspicuously into their bags or pockets to start their iPods will soon be able to do it more subtly—by simply clenching their teeth.”
And I thought Toronto subways were bad. In Japan they cram you in tighter than a fat lady in a size two- so doing something as simple as using your Ipod while riding the tube is a near impossible feat.
Japanese researchers at the state-run Osaka University have developed a head piece that uses infrared sensors and a microcomputer to allow the user to operate them by simply clenching their teeth.
And the device will hopefully be used for other electronics like cellphones & wheelchairs.
You are able to operate the devices without using your hands," said Fumio Miyazaki, an engineering science professor who heads the laboratory working on the project.
"You would be able to listen to music hands-free or operate your cellphone in a crowded train. Handicapped people would also be able to move wheelchairs," he told AFP by telephone.
Kazuhiro Taniguchi, who is playing a leading role in the research, said the system can be used by anybody who can chew food with their teeth -- real or artificial.
"I just thought it's inconvenient" to have to use your hands to switch on iPods or phones, especially on packed trains, Taniguchi said.
In the laboratory, grinding right teeth can play and halt music on an iPod while clenching left teeth makes it skip to the next track, he said.
The system could also allow users to flip through pages of a PowerPoint demonstration, allowing the presenter to gesture freely by clenching teeth instead of pressing buttons.
(news.yahoo)
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Via: news.yahoo
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