For some reason, whenever gadgetry and smiling cross paths, things tend to get a little creepy. Where the smile trainer was mostly a curiosity, the Orwellian implications of the Okao Catch technology were a bit much -- even for the hardened tech blogger. Sure, the Mimi Switch is quite clever: instead of relying on your fingers, this remote control uses an earbud containing infrared sensors that measure the inner ear movements resulting from various facial expressions. "An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue out," says the inventor, Kazuhiro Taniguchi
