Apple's Next Five iPods: Revealed!

Apple introduced a new iteration of its iPod Shuffle this week, bumping up the storage to 4GB and adding a voice that announces the name and artist for each song, in a 1.8 by 0.3 inch package that's smaller than a house key.

The House that Jobs Built will clearly keep pumping out new iterations of its portable media player, across a variety of different form factors, capabilities and price points. They've added video, Web access, a phone, and now it will even talk to you. How will our Cupertino Overlords continue to evolve iPod technology? Three Paste operatives died while sneaking the latest plans out of the Apple campus, just so that we could share them with you. Our lawyers are on standby:

iPod Molar: Implanted directly in the mouth, it uses your skull as a speaker. Responds to tongue movements and syncs over wi-fi. Current obstacle: Make-out sessions can cause it to turn on and off. Also, brain damage.

iPod Therapist: Sensors analyze your current heart rate, sweat composition and tone of voice, responding with soothing affirmations, songs that make you happy and pleasant smells (current options include Lilac and Fresh Bread.) Current obstacle: Marketing suggests it would sell poorly to both grad students and Scandinavians.

iPod Quartet: A band of candy-colored robots follows you around, playing your favorite songs. Includes singer, bass and guitar players, drummer. Optional add-ons include a horn section and keyboardist. Current obstacles: price, distribution and battery life.

iPod Multivac: About the size of a deck of cards, it contains the sum knowledge of human existence and holds every film, song and image ever created. Current obstacles: self-aware, keeps attempting to take over the world.

iPod Sensor: A Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chip worn on the buyer's person is detected by a network of sensors that will blanket the country. The sensors detect the chip and beam, and a predetermined set of songs and visual are sent directly into the buyer's cerebral cortex. Current obstacles: so far, only compatible with will.i.am content.