Earphones Enable Natural, Gestural Control...

Sony is pitching a new technology baked into its latest earphones called SensMe, and despite my skepticism about its name (and the weird cartoons explaining it), it seems pretty darn useful. The gist: sensors in the earbuds themselves enable you to control your phone and music player by inserting or removing the buds from your ears. Insert two buds, and the music player starts; remove one, and it pauses. Insert one bud to answer a call, and remove it to hang up. The concept isn't without its problems - I wonder how it would accommodate people like me who prefer to do phone calls with both earbuds, and it would be unpleasant to accidentally hang up if the one earbud fell out during a call - but its goal is admirable. It assumes commands to your device based on the other actions you have to take anyway in order to start a certain function, making the commands gestural and natural and streamlining the whole use of the product. I'll be looking for this!
[via Gizmodo]