[New Scientist]

…

Place the earphone on the right and the sensor points to the back of your head, detecting the ear behind it, while swapping to the left ear means the sensor points in front of you into the open air. A small embedded audio circuit swaps channels when the sensor detects a mismatch.

These new earphones also solve another common listening problem – sharing your ‘phones with a friend, which – as anyone who has listened to just one half of a Beatles song (or any other track with hard audio panning) knows – isn’t the most satisfying musical experience.

When worn by a single user the Universal Earphones run a weak electrical current from one side to the other, but this connection is broken if the earphones are shared between two users, causing each speaker to play both left and right channels through at once.

The researchers will present their work at Intelligent User Interface conference in Lisbon, Portugal later this month, but they also have further plans for improving ordinary earphones, including skin conductance sensors that detect whether the earphones are actually in your ear, which would let them automatically pause or resume your music on removal or insertion.

Read the full story here: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/02/universal-earphones-solve-your.html