Audio Menus for iPods

Clicking through the menu on your iPod demands a significant amount of visual attention, which can be a hassle (while jogging) and even dangerous (while driving). But engineers at the University of Toronto and Microsoft Research are working on software that could make it possible to navigate the menus of gadgets that use circular touch pads, like the iPod, without looking at them--only audio cues would be used.

The researchers have designed an auditory menu technique--called earPod--that provides audio feedback when a person drags his or her finger around the touch pad. Although it's not ready to replace the expansive menus on real iPods, the results are encouraging, says Patrick Baudisch, a research scientist at Microsoft Research, in Seattle, who worked on the project. Within 30 minutes of beginning to use the technology, people can navigate two levels of earPod menus faster than traditional visual menus, and just as accurately.

"Requiring constant visual attention while using a PC is reasonable," says Baudisch, "but if you're using an iPod on the road, [constant visual attention] is unreasonable." In addition to giving people back their eyes, he says, audio menus could help gadgets save battery life by not wasting energy on a screen, and they could add functions to the screen-free devices such as the iPod shuffle.