This has got to be one of the strangest handsfree control solutions that I have ever encountered. Apparently, Japanese researchers at Osaka University have devised a way for you to control your portable media player by simply clenching your teeth. The headgear works by using infrared sensors and a microcomputer. Through a series of 1s and 0s, you can essentially advance tracks and adjust the volume with your chompers.

By using a system like this, you never actually have to take your iPod or other music player out of your pocket — this should help to reduce theft rates, they say — because it’s all done with your teeth. The system is “activated” when the user clenches his teeth for more than a second (to prevent accidental activation), and then you move to the next track by grinding your left teeth, while the pause/play function is done by grinding your right teeth. A similar system has also been applied for navigating PowerPoint presentations.

Weird….