Picture 1:
In this picture, a woman is doing work on a laptop while listening to music on earbuds, in CoHo. This person needs a way to control her music without interfering with her work on her laptop. Okay. One way to do this would be to have a program on the computer that separates itself from the work environment, launches itself on an entirely new screen when prompted, and exits to the same work environment when control over the music is not needed. Another way would be to have an external hardware interface, a remote controller that could be used to manipulate the music without at all disturbing what is happening on the computer screen. Doesn't Apple make a remote control? Does it work for this?

Picture 2:
Though a bit fuzzy, the man in this picture is listening to music on earbuds while waiting for his order to be called at CoHo. This person needs a way to listen for his order to be called while enjoying his music. On way to do this would be to utilize an open-back esque design on the earbuds. Open-back headphones don't seal the back casing; instead, it is left open to ambient noise. Using this design, under a certain volume threshold on his music, this man could simultaneously listen for his number to be called and enjoy his music.

Picture 3:
Pictured here is a student eating (it's outside of the frame; trust me). Handling food while negotiating around headphone wires can be a messy and daunting task — this person needs a way to eat without entanglement on headphone wires. One way to do this would be to utilize wireless headphone buds, like those described in Fahrenheit 451. Using a communications technology like Bluetooth, the headphones would have rechargeable batteries embedded within them and receive musical data wirelessly; they could be recharged by connecting them to a charger when not in use. Good point. Aren't wireless headphones (or earbuds) available on the market? They are! So why do you think that this person isn't using them?

Picture 4:
Picture here is a student using a laptop to listen to music in a highly social undergraduate lounge. On multiple occasions, I witnessed her fumbling around the awkward music controls on the laptop to pause her music so she could answer a pestering student — the person needs an easier way to manipulate her music. One way to this would be to utilize a pause button located directly on the headphone — no windows to negotiate, to risk of tapping the wrong button to skip to the next song. Again, these are already available. What is it about either the solution, or the situation, that makes these users not purchase or use the existing solution? Hrm...

Picture 5:
Pictured here is a girl who is simultaneously talking to a friend and listening to music with only one of the two earbuds. This person needs a way to fully enjoy music in one ear while being able to hear her firms in the other. Most music is encoded in stereo — the two earbuds play different parts of the same song. Therefore, by only using one earbud, the listener misses out on half of the music in the song. A way to circumvent this issue would be to include sensors on the earbuds; removing one of the earbuds would trigger the sensor, and this would tell the MP3 player to encode the music into mono, and play it into the non-removed bud. That's a really nice idea. It would be a great EE47 project! A student did something similar last summer, only without the sensor idea. It turned out to be more of a challenge that we thought at first.

It's a bit difficult to read your scan, but the metaphors, especially for picture 5, are good. I encourage you to pursue this idea after class. I think that you could build it!