A Japanese engineer has crafted an MP3 player (bearing an Apple logo) shaped like a cube. The player isn't strange because it's a cube, but because it has no mechanical controls whatsoever.
The device could very well sit on a shelf next to Apple's iPods thanks to a sleek design and ingenious functionality. What makes the Cube MP3 player special is that it has a built-in accelerometer that allows the user to move it about or tap its sides to activate certain controls.
“This is the third MP3 player project in succession,” says ChaN, the player's inventor. “In this project, I designed it as a simple and small audio player compared to previous large scale graphic MP3 player projects and implemented an additional strange gimmick. The MP3 player does not have any buttons nor dials that [are] shown in [the] right photo and it has an acceleration sensor instead of the mechanical switches. Therefore all playback commands to the player are given in defined motions, such as inclination, tilt and shock,” ChaN explains. “The player detects the motion with the built-in acceleration sensor and recognize [sic] it as a playback control command. As the result, it came to not seem an audio player in appearance.”
The cube-shaped player allows its user to place in a memory card (SD), at which point the device starts playing. An additional speaker (for stereo playback) can be connected. To stop playback, the user simply has to remove the memory card. According to ChaN, the playback control commands are given in motion, as follows: Next Track - Tap right bottom corner on the desk and go to next track. When last track in the album is playing, which track is played next follows the loop mode.
Next Album - Enter two Next Track commands within 400 milliseconds and go to first track of the next album.
Previous Track - Tap left bottom corner on the desk and go to previous track. When first track in the album is playing, which track is played next follows the loop mode.
Previous Album - Enter two Previous Track commands within 400 milliseconds and go to first track of the previous album.
Pause - Lay down this side and put it front down. Put normal direction to resume.
Volume Up - Increases volume while tilted right.
Volume Down - Decreases volume while tilted left.
Set Loop Mode - Tap on the desk at Pause state. One tap sets all loop mode and two taps set album loop mode. When the command is accepted, the green LED flashes one or two times.
Correspondence of LED and Status is also explained on ChaN's site. Each LED lamp corresponds to a certain status, such as Green (playback), Red (pause), and yellow (charging). Visit ChaN here for more on his invention.
