Your EarPod Is Talking To You

Now hear this: Your iPod is talking to you. That isn't the reality yet, but it could be soon.

Engineers in the U.S. and Canada are working on a prototype of an audio menu device called earPod, a hierarchical menu that speaks its category titles, so you don't have to look at the menu to make your choices.

The prototype is based on the ubiquitous iPod circular touch menu, with a group of eight "pie pieces" surrounding the click wheel. Each pie piece signifies a different main menu, and each main menu item has its own submenu with a group of items, for a total of 64.


The earPod has performed well in usability studies so far, with respondents mastering the system in as little as 30 minutes. That's a far cry from the 10 minutes that it takes average users to master a standard visual menu interface, but it's not as long as many people might think it would be.

And it's not just music players. Such menus could be used for phones, PDAs, and other portable electronics devices. One prime advantage is that you wouldn't have a screen as a constant battery drain.

Updated versions are in the works already, and further versions will undoubtedly include more submenus and easier ways to access them.




Written by Stroe Sorin
Published in Multimedia Devices