Concept earphones turn into practical accessory

There's no real easy way to store your earbuds, is it? No matter what you do, they usually end up in your pocket all tangled up in a ball, unless you have one of those spiky Tetran headphone winders. Lucky for us, it looks like Phillips is already exploring a new earphone design that's both fashionable and more sanitary.

Yanko Design has a few shots of a concept design called the Holeder Earphone, which fits nicely in the ear and prevents excessive bacterial growth when you wear earbuds inside the inner ear. Another advantage to the J-shape earbud design is the way they hook onto each other behind your neck forming a necklace that also eliminates tangled wires.

Designer Yoon Sang Kim from the Seoul National University of Technology, is responsible for the concept design that already won an IDEA design award this year, and seems to have enough potential to become a real product. I'm totally digging the Holeder Earphone, but lets hope the shape won't interfere with the way they sound too much.