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*SNIFF* "Hmm...smells like someone forgot a semicolon."

That's not such a big problem. ;-)

Let's see, I can use the iSmell to recreate scents. I can get the 180 degree immersive monitor to immerse my sense of sight. My sense of hearing can be fooled by the AuSIM reCREate. The previously mentioned iFeel MouseMan covers my sense of touch. That just leaves my sense of taste, which is obviously lacking if I would use all of these products rather than go outside and take a walk. &ltsigh&gt I suppose I will just have to lick my iSmell.

but what would be even nicer is if we had a way to find out if the bathroom smelled before we went in. They could probably use the technology that's been developed by Digi Scents, which would transmit scents over a computer. I think that they've gone out of business (correct me if I'm wrong), but their iSmell Personal Scent Synthesizer would be pretty handy. It basically consists of a speaker-sized computer device that attaches either to the serial or USB port and plugs into a standard electrical outlet. And with a click of a mouse, the device would release naturally based vapors. Now that'd be cool!

And have they thought about how they're going to seal the controls to keep the vaseline from leaking into everything?

Seriously, I can just see the humans of the future as big blobs just laying in their Poetic Tech Chair twitching and jerking their way through life with attendant Aibos and Palm-creatures zipping around them. Actual contact won't be necessary as we can stop and smell the roses right on the information highway.

Better than surround lights would be a Surround DigiScents system. Then I could emulate at work the comfort of my own bedroom; empty coffee cups through the left sniffer, musty old mouse mat from the centre sniffer, the two right sniffers would tell me there's some cold pizza somewhere in my unmade bed, and my rear-left would recreate that homely smell of the pile of socks in the corner.

If we could use the sense of smell, we could put in the smell of the sea or something. I think that we will be able to do this in ten or twenty years.

We will be able to do this tomorrow. Literally. DigiScents has prototypes (and perhaps production devices by now) for the iSmell product. They also have a "ScentTracker" (You Amigans should love that name) 'for the creation of "scent scores" for movies, music, and interactive games', a player, a mixer (for making smells), and more. You want more hilarity? They're creating the web's first scent-enabled portal, at www.snortal.com. Yes, that's right. Snortal.

I did not attend the showing of the iSmell device (at GDC last year) but I did talk quite a bit with a couple of their developers, and inhaled some of the rising aroma of the little glass jars, such as ozone, gunfire, damp earth, swamp, and the ubiquitous banana. The smells were all spot on.

As you probably know, your sense of smell is a fairly complicated thing, but there are only so many chemicals that we can detect.

Amusingly enough, there was another company at GDC the same year with a prototype second generation smell-o-vision. I didn't talk to them much, though; They weren't nearly accessible.

If we could use the sense of smell, we could put in the smell of the sea or something. I think that we will be able to do this in ten or twenty years.

We will be able to do this tomorrow. Literally. DigiScents has prototypes (and perhaps production devices by now) for the iSmell product. They also have a "ScentTracker" (You Amigans should love that name) 'for the creation of "scent scores" for movies, music, and interactive games', a player, a mixer (for making smells), and more. You want more hilarity? They're creating the web's first scent-enabled portal, at www.snortal.com. Yes, that's right. Snortal.

I did not attend the showing of the iSmell device (at GDC last year) but I did talk quite a bit with a couple of their developers, and inhaled some of the rising aroma of the little glass jars, such as ozone, gunfire, damp earth, swamp, and the ubiquitous banana. The smells were all spot on.

As you probably know, your sense of smell is a fairly complicated thing, but there are only so many chemicals that we can detect.

Amusingly enough, there was another company at GDC the same year with a prototype second generation smell-o-vision. I didn't talk to them much, though; They weren't nearly accessible.

• "But how do you know that that's what Tasty Wheat really tastes like? Maybe it's just what the computers think it tastes like. Maybe that's why so many things taste like Chicken, because they don't know how it's supposed to taste!"

Both companies inherit from these founders a weakness for overhyping and underdelivering.