ilikethis.

There are several reasons Bluetooth headphones haven’t taken off — lousy designs, poor execution, that cumbersome “pairing” — but the Zik, a new headset that Parrot unveiled at CES 2012, appears to address pretty much all of them. The Zik is one of the cleverest implementations of wireless technology we’ve seen in headphones to date. For starters, the Zik has serious design cred behind it. It’s another baby of designer Phillipe Starck, who also collaborated with Parrot on speakers, and he seems to have struck gold here. The Zik’s earcups completely enclose the ear — a style made popular again by Beats Audio — but the headset is comfortable to wear and has an elegant look. The Zik’s sleek look is partly due to the unusual fact that it has no buttons for volume or jumping tracks. To turn up the volume of your streamed music, just swipe your finger up the back of the right earcup. To track up, swipe forward; track down, swipe back. And to pause? Just take off the headset and it knows to stop the music until you put it back on — very smart. (via Parrot Zik: Best Bluetooth Headphones Ever? [HANDS ON])