I-Smell Technology

ABSTRACT

The technology has so far targeted mainly our sense of sight and sound. To further enhance the virtual reality experience and another flavor to it, technology is now targeting your nose and tongue.
The application area of virtual reality is vast- from normal entertainment to the Internet and e-commerce application. You will be able to smell product before buying them online.
California-based Dig scents Inc. has developed the iSmell personal scent synthesizer. This small device connects through your pc via serial port and has its own driver.

INTRODUCTION

All have been attempting to master the latest technological advancement of the elusive and rapidly changing computer industry, something with a different twist has been fermenting in the corners of virtual reality. Have you noticed anything missing at your latest catch-up-with-technology in service course? Listening to the music, sending mails, searching journals on-line appears to have become common practice.Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to smell the flowers that you order online before purchasing them? Or be able to “taste-smell” a variety of perfumes while surfing the web? Being able to mechanically recreate one of the five senses, namely smell, has been in the works for quite some time now. A company called DigiScents believes they have the goods to revolutionize the way we think of smell. They have recently teamed up with Quest International
One of the world’s leading fragrance, ,flavor and food ingredients manufacturers with particular strengths in sensory design and consumer understanding. Together, they envision a vast array of new opportunities; mostly in the way they plan on making this new technology profitable. iSmell is 3”x 2”x 5” little box-like device made by DigiScents promises to deliver the critical and much anticipated dimension of aroma to one’s latest computer encounter. Bellenson first introduced the device as a prototype add on to an IBM ThinkPad which will ultimately be capable of emitting 12050 different combinations of odour. Adding fragrances to film-clips is not an entirely new idea. Back in the 50’s, the American public was introduced to such memorable highlights as Aroma-Rama and Smell -o-vision . A variety of scents fill theaters and accompanied several different motion pictures including, Behind the Great Wall. Bellenson and Smith stumbled upon the idea of designing an odour synthesizer after exploring avenues for improving the smell of food. They stated that “Taste is 95% aroma; your tongue can only detect sweet, sour, bitter and salty. All other tastes are a function of the nose. Coding of aromas would be downloaded to computer similar to graphics images are audible sounds. Ultimately users will be able to create and modify their own fragrances and post them on the internet(2000).Also discussed the potential for creating smell capture cameras, which could add fragrances coding to images and sounds.