If Apple follows through with one of its new patents, your iPod may start paying attention to how long you're listening to music, and how loud. Sounds a little intrusive but, If you think about it, pretty much any audio player out there won't stop you from cranking up the volume until you're ear drums explode.

Apple's new control technology would turn down your tunes if it deems it too loud for the period of time you've had it at that level, and, if you try to listen to music too soon (and too loud once again), you'll find that you can't turn it up as high until you've given your ears a rest.

So do we want players that determine what volume we can listen to music? As a fan of stuff like heavy metal, I'm against anything like this just based on principle. On the other hand, as a fan of hearing, I wouldn't mind a player that doesn't top out as high as current ones. Either way, do we really need our MP3 players to save us from ourselves?

Daily Mail, via Crave