Eye Control Coming To iPods And Music Players...One Day

Here's the thing--having a phone that plays music, or even an iPod, is great. And it's really great if you've got the time to establish playlists that you never need to touch once you hit "play" that first time and head out for the morning. But what about for everyone else? Everyone else is stuck fiddling with volume controls, back/forward buttons and all sorts of other tweaks in order to find musical enjoyment, and NTT DoCoMo realizes just what a hassle all of that has become.

The Japanese telecommunications firm has showcased recently a new breakthrough technology that could very well change the way we listen to music on the go. Not since the introduction of the original iPod have we been able to say that with a straight face, but it's true. The new eye-recognition demo essentially enables music listeners to flick their eyes to the left/right to move a track forward/back, while looking up or down briefly could lower or raise volume. It's controlling music with your eyes, and it's brilliant.


The system was shown off this past week at the Ceatec trade show in Japan, though it did require a dedicated camera to watch the eyes. We're hoping that a commercialized version of this (should it ever arrive) would be able to use bone conducting technology or something else in order to detect eye movements. Hmm, maybe the age of mind and body control really is upon us?