E-Mimi-kun, Sanyo's Wonder

It is a fact that using your mobile phones in noisy environments can be pretty hard to manage. Other people's voices, car noises and so on will end up interrupting your conversation. But, in order to solve this problem Sanyo has come up with an invention.

It's called the e-Mini-kun, a title translated into something like "electronic-mini-fella" or "good ear boy", and it is a device that allows one to "speak" through the ear, or at least this is how it goes, theoretically.

The developer of the headset is NS-ELEX Co. with a chip developed by Sanyo, the Japanese electronics giant. The working mechanism is pretty simple: the device has the role of an earphone and a microphone at the same time and is able to detect air vibrations inside the ear. Meaning that it picks the bone vibrations.

People will be able to use this by connecting it to their mobile phones with a wire, this one being cheaper. There is also a wireless way to use it too, and that's via Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the wireless connection will cost you more than the previous version.

But still, how can you coop up with the exterior noise? Voices inside Sanyo say that the exterior noise is reduced sixfold by the ear piece and your voice will be clearly heard by the one you're talking to. The chip of the device has the same role in reducing the sound levels, but does it by tenfold. Pretty amazing job!

The major purpose of the head piece is clearly for those working in noisy places such as construction sites, law enforcement, factories, amusements parks and so on.

The cost of this kind of gadget will go around 40.000 yen, meaning $353 for the wired version, and 60.000 yen i.e. $530 for the Bluetooth version. A release date has approximately been given and it is next year in April.