When we want music, we want music everywhere, some of us even want it underwater, so somebody created the underwater MP3 player. The problem of listening to music underwater is that the earphone lines are going to tangle, let alone the fact that your ears would feel uncomfortable because of the super tight earbuds; another danger would actually be not knowing what’s going on underwater because you can’t hear. Thanko has solved all these problems today.

Similar to their original bone-conduction headphone, instead of placing the buds into your ears, you would be pressing them against your skull close to your ears, you would be listening to the music via bone conduction and not air conduction. One more thing, since the headphone is water-proof and shaped like a headband, Thanko also added a little pouch where you can slide your iPod Shuffle in. So you can listen to your iPod Shuffle underwater without worrying about the chords, or what’s going on underwater (you still have your ears to hear). Pretty neat eh? The waterproof headband bone-conduction headphones will be available starting today at $85 in Japan. –Sam Chan

Link

Prototypes are meant to be attractive, right? They’re supposed attract buyers to look into the company’s new technology. Toshiba might has just done the opposite with their fuel-cell technology. (fuel, being alcohol) We’ve seen fuel-cell driven notebooks and even Gigabeat MP3 players, but by far the most unattractive would be this: the A2DP headphones. Ok, fine, probably it doesn’t really look that bad, but quoting their own words, the development issues are cost, size and durability. For once we are not sure if we really want to see this prototype commercialized, no thank you. One more pic after the jump, see if that can change your mind.

(more…)

If you see someone on the street wearing headphones in front of the ears but not over the ears, that person is probably not crazy but probably the smartest dude around here, because he’s using Thanko’s Vonia bone conduction headphones. Instead of pumping sound into your ear canal, it relies on the part of temporal bone in front of your ears to conduct the vibration (sound), it is hard to explain how it feels but you can ask your doctor to perform a Rinne’s on you to get the hang of it. Bone conduction is the best when you are list music in loud places, the volume doesn’t have to go up to hurt your ears either. Enough of messing around at science museum, Thanko is already selling these headphones for 86USD in Japan. More product shots after the jump. –Sam Chan

Product page [Thanko]

Earphone chords have always been annoying, especially when they’re long enough to trip you. Earphones manufacturers have sought for years to fix this problem, Sony gives you the little plastic holder that you turn and coil the chord like a measuring tape, Panasonic brought out earphones that can suck up the chord into the headmount. Elecom Japan has come out with something that is cheap, small and intuitive to use. The picture speaks louder than words. $8 soft plastic with 5 matching colors for your Nano, jump to have a look at all the colors.

(more…)