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Auto-pause headphones

So you never miss a beat
  (+16)(+16)
(+16)
  [vote for,
against]

Take them out of your ear and they pause the mp3, cd or tape. Put them back in, they start up again. It could detect the ear through pressure, light or even smell.
sadie, May 20 2002

Gotuit Radio http://www.gotuit.com/agradio.html
Your headphones could control this PRR device. [bristolz, May 20 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

iPod auto-pause http://www.macworld...rc=editorsblog-0704
Jul 28 2004 [krelnik, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

[link]






       And an agreement for everybody across the country to take their headphones out at the same time. One big collective pop. *grin*
sadie, May 20 2002
  

       What happens if you take out only one earphone - does the music slow down?
mcscotland, May 20 2002
  

       // What happens if you take out only one earphone - does the music slow down? //   

       Short of psychically detecting which ear you're paying attention to, my guess would be that it carries on.   

       On the subject of radio, it just occurred to me: TiVo! A few minutes' worth of pause memory in the radio. Pull the headphones out, and it reels the radio signal into memory. Next ad break that comes along, you can just spew forwards through it until you hit real time.
sadie, May 20 2002
  

       If one earphone comes out, the set should adjust the balance and volume accordingly.
yamahito, May 20 2002
  

       This seems to have promise for media other than live radio. If you work out the ear-detection bit, it should be a simple matter from there to pause an mp3/cd(/cassette?) player.   

       If you're talking about the "ear bud" type devices it could be a bit more difficult but, with a more standard "headphone" you might be able to use a tilt switch to detect whether the headphones are in a relatively upright position on your head or in a laying down position on your desk. (Wouldn't be to swift for listening in bed though.)   

       They could also detect when you fall asleep at your desk unless you can sleep sitting up. This feature could be leveraged to set off an alarm in your ear to wake you. If you have a computer intensive, cubicle resident job then it could, instead of waking you, begin playing keyboard/mouse clicking sounds through external speakers so that it sounds like you're awake and working.
half, May 20 2002
  

       yama, sadie, it's strictly against the rules to use real names on the 1/2B. It's like the foreign legion, only with less fez and camel spit.
pottedstu, May 20 2002
  

       ...but more socks and puns.
phoenix, May 20 2002
  

       what, eh? who said that? big p of the dessert? camel spit - yuk.
po, May 20 2002
  

       Ritually disembowels himself, and deletes the offending posts as they weren't very interesting anyway.
sadie, May 21 2002
  

       Possibly not in that order.
sadie, May 21 2002
  

       I originally meant CD or MP3. Radio was just a joke - that suddenly became viable. Description changed accordingly.
sadie, May 21 2002
  

       For regular headphones, you wouldn't even need a tilt switch, just something triggered by whether the headphones are being stretched by virtue of being on a person's head or are in their natural, more circular shape.
Tlogmer, Jul 20 2002
  

       The latest incarnation of Apple's iPod, introduced just last week, does this if you unplug the earphones from the unit, which seems pretty close. See link.
krelnik, Jul 28 2004
  

       Solid idea! [+]
daseva, Jun 21 2005
  
      
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