Sony Xperia Ear concept gives you an 'ears-up'

While it doesn't look like much now, the idea behind this prototype of Sony's Xperia Ear personal assistant is to let you hear the environment better, so you don't just focus on your music. While it sounds counterproductive -- almost the opposite of noise-cancelling earphones -- it lets you still pick up on traffic sounds (if you're cycling) or voices when you need to talk to people, without having to take it out of your ear canals.

While the prototype isn't very comfortable to wear thanks to its rigid build, expect the final product to be made of a more flexible rubberized polymer that should adjust to your ear shape.

Connected to your phone via Bluetooth, the Ear will potentially let you reply to messaging apps such Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp, or get directions from Google. It's basically an ears-up display.

And yes, you can also take phone calls with this and as futuristic as it sounds, the Ear would also be able to handle translations.

If you bike a lot on busy roads and need to pay attention to traffic, or even get map directions as you go, this could potentially be the best thing ever.

Sony didn't reveal when the Xperia Ear will be ready, but did say it's definitely going to be a real product. No word on how much it will cost either.