Your mother always told you that listening to your music was cutting you from people around. This could not be true anymore thanks to tunA, developped by Media Lab Europe, research partner to MIT Media Lab.

TunA-enabled player behaves like any MP3 player. But as soon as other users are in range, the interface displays other users, identified by the avatar of their choice.
Clicking on these avatars lets you see the personal profile or messages others want to share, their playlist and the song they are listening to so you can decide if you want to tune in.
There’s also instant-message function, the possibility to change skins and to bookmark not only songs, but also people.
“So even though the people around you might change, you can bookmark those you like, so next time you see them, (tunA) would notify you they’re around,” explained Arianna Bassoli, the researcher who masterminded the project. “Also, if there’s a song that you don’t you know, you can bookmark it so the next time someone nearby has it, you can ask them about it.”

This project is part of the research group “Human Connectedness“