US manufacturer Finis has won a Red Dot design award for a waterproof MP3 player that allows swimmers to listen to music underwater by transmitting sound through the cheekbone directly to the inner ear.

The Neptune MP3 players uses what Finis calls its Bone Conduction technology to conduct sound from the MP3 player's headphones through the bones in the human skull to the cochlea in the inner ear, using speakers the rest on the temples. Tiny hairs in the cochlea sense vibrations in the cochlear fluid and convert the vibrations into electrical signals, which are communicated via neurotransmitters to the brain. — Reuters