9to5mac is reporting some last-minute leaks ahead of the Apple event later today. Chief amongst them are that the iPod's new connection will be named "Lightning"—presumably to complement Thunderbolt—and a reaffirmation that the company will launch a new set of headphones to be known as "Earpods".

I can stand the Grumblenug stealing my dreams, the Murmalow eating some cats or the Shreekler biting my toes. But that Little Asshole and his knotting of headphone cords is the worse.

One of the James Dyson Award entrants, Stefan Zwegers, thinks it's the latter, which is why his Sensible Music invention turns bass into vibrations when listening to music through headphones.

That's "hella-long," our editor Joe has assured me, and just in case you're willing to test that one out yourself, they can be used as normal stereo headphones should the battery run out of juice.

The fact that HeadPhone exists is both sad and brilliant. Sad, because it's actually a problem that it can be really hard to get someone's attention at work because of perma-headphones. Brilliant, because Headphone pretty much fixes this problem.

Kevin Fox, lead designer at Mozilla Labs, thinks the iPad 2 is using pogo pins instead of the more traditional switch contacts. They've actually filed patents for the pogo pin style headphone jack (which is smaller) before and have been interested in re-making the headphone jack entirely. The difference is super…

When your headphones cost more than your monthly rent, there's pressure to keep them pristine—but also to show them off. The Omega Headphone Stand does both with a single, oval-shaped piece of wood.

Urban Ears' '80s headphones are pretty much the antithesis to the Aiaiai ones I've been rocking recently, but I suppose they're just as hipster as each other. The TANTO cans come in random colors for ultimate joy or never-ending disappointment.

Rumor is that Apple bought out a small Bluetooth wireless headphone designer about two months ago. The company went by the name Wi-Gear, made a product called iMuffs, and is now mysteriously out of business.

Simply put, Apple wants fewer holes in its devices. Headphone jack—that's a hole. Microphone—that's a hole. According to a recent patent filing, Apple is looking to consolidate by combining the functionality of the two into one unified jack.

I'm constantly searching for The Pair of over-ear headphones, so I'm pretty chuffed that after months of stunning teaser photos the TMA-1 'phones by Aiaiai have finally gone on sale—for $170*.

I can see Monster scratching their (many) heads in the board room, wondering how to appeal to women after too many Dr Dre headphones. "I know!" (shouted Noel Lee), "butterflies! They all like butterflies!" I must have a penis then.

The proprietary dock connector on the iPod line is nice for a wide line of accessories, but it forces you to carry a uni-purpose iPod cable. The PocketDock lets you sync and charge with miniUSB, the accepted standard, instead.

These Michael Jackson Thriller headphones are pretty fantastic cause, well, they're Thriller headphones, but the graveyard imagery might be a little bit too soon. Still, awesome.

Gear Live, through a hands-on, has finally figured out why the white version of the Monster Beats cost twice as much as the standard black version. It's coated by Colorware.

Most cell phones now come with media playback features, but designers still seem to think that a wide range of proprietary headphone connections makes more sense than using a standard 3.5mm jack. This colorful invention gets around this problem, converting various manufacturers' connections to a standard headphone…

The Gadget: Belkin's iPhone headphone adapter, which lets you use any set of headphones that don't normally fit into the iPhone's recessed headphone jack.

Could these possibly be the worst headphones ever made for the iPod shuffle? Yes, yes they could. Instead of making them something a normal person would wear, Arriva's gone and made them "wireless," in the sense that they have a built-in iPod shuffle dock and hangs the player off the back of your head. Sure, it's…