Cassette MP3 player uses finger twisting for charging and song skipping

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There are so many wonderful things about this MP3 player idea. It’s not an actual product yet, but here are the basics. First, just like old school cassettes, you’ll need to choose a tape length: 45 minutes, 60 minutes, or 90 minutes. The higher the number, the more songs you can fit on the flash-based player.

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The device has a flip-out USB connector for transferring songs, along with a sliding button along the bottom of the tape that corresponds to Play and Stop.

Changing tracks? You don’t really change entire tracks, but you can twist your finger inside the left tape spool to fast forward and rewind current songs (see top photo). If you’re into retro stuff, this is it. The thing goes back past even CDs as far as functionality is concerned. A little display in between the spools shows elapsed track time, which ought to help some.

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A welcome current-day feature is kinetic charging. Spin the right side tape spool with your finger to recharge the battery. Who knows how long it takes to get to a full charge, but a status light will illuminate from red to orange to green as you juice everything up.

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The player sits inside a protective plastic tape case, just like the tape cases from the days of yore. This case has a slot so you can use your headphones while protecting the player, too.

Again, this isn’t a real product yet and it’s definitely not as functional as an actual MP3 player but for anyone who grew up with tapes, it might bring back some nice memories. It’d be cool if they could shrink it down to the size of an actual cassette (it looks a bit larger) and let you stick it in an actual cassette player like some of those already-available solutions but it’s probably not a huge priority as tape decks have slowly gone the way of the buffalo.

This concept comes from designers Stefano Pertegato, Massimiliano Rampoldi, Eloisa Tolu, Francesco Schiraldi, and Giovanni Mendini.

Finger Power Works The Tape [Yanko Design]