Smell Mail to Replace E-mail?

Christianfreak, one of the two people not to submit a new lawsuit today, writes "My boss pointed me to a website describing a new technology that will allow people to add scent to their web pages or email. The site claims they use Java and a better understanding of the human genome to create scents through a device called the "iSmell"." These folks appear to be serious. The mind boggles. Will people start complaining about overuse of the <STINK> tag? All right, a slashdot contest: name some internet experience (including URL if appropriate), and the smell that should accompany it. Funniest entry gets a slashdot t-shirt.

Update: 01/23 10:20 by michael : Okay, I've selected a winner. An honorable mention goes to comment 26, the perfect amount of shock value. But unfortunately, not funny enough to take the shirt. However, the comments following it are extremely funny. :)

But the first comment to make me laugh out loud was this one, with pirated smelz and snifz. Maybe I've just been reading too much about the RIAA and mp3's lately... Congratulations to the user known as Tim Behrendsen.

Comments

Would a cramped office start to smell "brown"?

[jsm]

You know, how when all colors mix together they eventually end up as brown? If the ventilation was bad, would all the smells hang around, and eventually mix into some high-entropy funky stank?

Ob. contest entry: For all e-commerce sites anywhere, I hereby nominate the sickly artificial chemical smell of new packaging. You know the one, like new car smell but bad. Sometimes really bad. Varies by package.

Slashdot...

[kuro5hin]

Slashdot would still smell exactly like it did a year ago. But Rob will be done with the new scent formula any day now, so then you can all put the right ingredients into your iSmell. Really. They have an internal smell date that they fully intend to make. It's a huge job. Only three people in the world know how difficult it is to formulate a new smell. But they could never have gotten as far as they have without all the wonderful smells that others on the internet have created and given away for free. And for that they are truly grateful. So just you wait. The new smell will knock your socks off, and bowl you right over. Any day now...

"Moderation is good, in theory."
-Larry Wall

A smell for the US Patent Office

[FPhlyer]

Oh darn, I was going to suggest a great smell for the U.S. Patent Office, but it looks like all of the really good eSmells have already got patents pending.

An appropriate one

[the_tsi]

www.wizards.com: Wizards of the Coast.

I want to visit their website and get the smell of freshly opened Magic cards.

(I haven't actually played in several years, but I hear from my friends that the smell isn't what it used to be -- they've changed inks or something on the cards. On a related note, has anyone opened a Red Hat 6.1 box? That's the same as the "Magic Card Smell.")

-Chris

Or how about...

[Merk]

Haddock, Salmon, Pike, Bass, Cod, Tuna

I knew this kid named Jimmy when I was growing up. Jimmy was, how shold I put it... "Special". Jimmy loved to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. That's why I think pb & j is the appropriate smell for these guys

Nervous sweat is the smell for these guys and these guys too

For these guys it's obvious, rocket fuel.

And in the same spirit, that vomitey, greasy, sugarey, metallic smell you find near big rollercoasters for them

And the muddy, porcine smell you'd find around that prize-winning heiffer that just keeps eating and getting bigger for these freaks. Of course you know that animal is the main ingredient for the spiced ham smell that you'd find here

Multimedia ... A rose by any other name?

[nazerim]

If this isn't another of those elaborate hoaxes - then it'd be quite intriguing. Already much work has gone into scent generation (perfumes) and scent detection (bomb sniffers ... heh ... and other industrial uses, of course).

Digital scent generation? From my understanding of smell, it might just work ... many different combinations of aromatics could produce the right smell. However, you'd need lots of chemicals - it might just end up a right STINK ...

Smell is a more powerful sensation than taste - why does your food taste bland when you have a blocked nose? ;) This has implications, also stated on their website, in evoking emotions and memories - very, very powerful marketing tool. Fresh Lemon, Sweet Flowers, the smell of the Sea - jsut imagine, not only do you have to watch L d'caprio for 3 hours, you also have to smell him ...

heh.

but i digress, it's high time we looked into other forms of media, not just sight and sound. This might not be "it", but it's a step in the right direction, imo.

What about accessibility?

[CJ Hooknose]

There are a number of people out there who have no sense of smell, or a greatly reduced sense of smell.[0] Enter "anosmia" into a search engine and see what you find there. If people actually developed this tech. and used it extensively, could the National Anosmic Foundation raise a big stink[1] in much the same way as some blind people did when they found AOL's sites were impossible to view within a text-only browser?

Anyway, I think a better scent for MS's web page would be ethyl mercaptan. CH3-CH2SH, patently artificial, listed in the Guinness Book as being among the foulest odors known to humans. Penetrating and lasts a long time, too--skunks use mercaptans in their personal defense musk.

[0] Yep, I'm one of them.
[1] Sorry--couldn't resist.

The smell of money

[LinuxParanoid]

You know that smell you get when you've been handling lots of money? Dipping your hands in those jars full of coins, sorting, counting them out?

That's what I smell when I visit Microsoft's websites. Makes me want to wash my hands, every time... ;-)

--LP

That's it. I am NEVER going to freshmeat again!

[bons]

The code there is getting old or their server is overheating, one of the two.

-----
Want to reply? Don't know HTML? No problem.

Re:Obligatory jokes...

[aqua]

Also journalists using hot-paper smells, the inevitable reeking cacaphony of Usenet (a.s.r would smell of burnt silicon), the grotesque smell down{wind,stream} of AOL. Emacs would employ the olfactory port of the dissociation code. Editors would have to provide syntax highlighting and meta tags for smells. Ad filters (ijb et al) would be employed to make for a neutral experience.

Every corporate website would employ the olfactory equivalent of Muzak -- some superficial focus grouped scent of productivity and profit, mixed with some twinge of dynamism and excitement. Evil h4x0rs would break in and replace these smell files with the smell of pot (doubt that? Check the attrition hacked-sites archive and count the pot references).

We would receive spam offering us the usual "free pics delivered daily to your email box," augmented with "wee wiff of quim in the morning" offerings no discriminating connosieur (sp) could resist. [Rob Roy reference]

Mailbombs would become messier affairs.

Valentine's day (easy). cron jobs that produce the smell of toast and coffee (or other apropriate cues) at the right times of day.

Rather than spraying an aerosol about whilst cleaning a bathroom, you'd send mail to the e-toilet.

I pity those who got their moderator points on this one. :)

Smells

[Darchmare]

http://www.apple.com/imac
Smell: Tangerine, Blueberry, Grape, Lime, or Strawberry. Take your pick.

http://127.0.0.1
Smell: Me. Eww?

http://www.microsoft.com
Smell: Decaying, rotting meat - as found near most large predatory creatures.

http://www.amiga.com/
Smell: None at all!

http://www.wto.org/
Smell: Is that... Tear gas?

http://www.windows2000test.com
Smell: A very large foot, immersed in a very large mouth.

http://www.be.com/press/pressreleases/00-01-18_f ree.html
Smell: The persperation of desperation.

http://www.starwars.com
Smell: A big pile of cash.

http://www.linuxone.net
Smell: Vaguely rodent-like?

http://www.apple.com
Smell: A (somewhat spritely) reanimated corpse.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/
Smell: I can't tell, I'm still holding my nose. You figure it out.

http://www.digiscents.com
Smell: Vaporware (do you _really_ think this will take off?).


- Jeff A. Campbell
- VelociNews (http://www.velocinews.com)

The shmell that ish shlashdot... *hiccup*

[cswiii]

Being the complex portal, weblog that it is, with such a diverse community, Slashdot would of course have a more complex nose than some of the other sites out there. I have brought together a crack team of oenophiles, who have adapted their exceedingly talented noses to the analysis of Slashdot. The following is the culmination of their many months of olfactory investigation.

• 45% concrete, symbolic of the solid, productive discussion that makes up the plurality of Slashdot discussion...
  
• 30% smoky, due to that sealed-in, flame-broiled flavour that also envelops a great deal of the ensuing discussions...
  
• 10% greasy, the remnants of slippery patent law and lawyers, slipping through our collective grasp...
  
• 10% earthy, a testament to the abundance of petrification and proliferation of other troll excrement...
  
• And finally, 5% buttery, a testament to the abundance of hot, buttered grits.
  

Further analysis will be provided upon request, assuming, of course, that there's a nice cabernet available to accompany the lively discussion. ;-)

SmellU-SmellMe is no longer in beta test

[Wee]

You always wanted to be able to alternately smell and talk/see to you online companion, and now you can. You think that 16 year old is really a man? Now you can be sure with SmellU-SmellMe, coming soon from RealAroma.com! You just can't be sure until you get a whiff of either Tommy Girl or Old Spice.

SmellU-SmellMe: Don't get caught chatting without it.

-B

Obligatory jokes...

[TheDullBlade]

"Something smells fishy about all this..."

"Here's Bill Gate's email address and the raw sewage tag!"

"Just imagine the potential for pr0n sites!"

"Given the typical hacker's regard for personal hygiene, how useful could it be?"

"We just hacked MS's home page, and it doesn't just stink figuratively anymore!"

God to sue creators?

[calibanDNS]

I've heard rumors that God is considering a lawsuit against the creators of this technology. The basis of his case is that the encryption method used in DNA was reverse engineered and anyone using this is illegally encoding and decoding smells. Also, the potential application to copy smells and distribute them without licensing a biological nose from God could seriously cut into His profits. I wouldn't be too worried though, from what I here no good lawyers have ever come remotely close to Heaven, so he has more or less horrid legal council.

~CalibanDNS

I see a future lawsuit...

[Tim Behrendsen]

First someone creates an open source Ralph Lauren Polo... I would just hold my face up to my computer, hit the button, and BAM! Ready to go out on a date!

Then, of course, Ralph Lauren files a lawsuit against the web sites distributing the Polo source code. "If everyone can distribute Polo for free, then there will be no in-scent-ive to create new fragrances!" The judge issues a restraining order and bans any code that duplicates copyrighted smells.

Meanwhile, the "smelz" underground grows like wildfire, and the industry is helpless to stop it. A version of Napster appears to trade pirated "snifz".

It's only a matter of time. Don't forget you saw it here first.

---

Testing, W3C cascading smell sheats

[JamesSharman]

<SMELL class="flower:rose" strength="%75">This idea has potential</SMELL><SMELL class="fruit:apple:rotten" strength="%80">I like to see inovation on the net.<SMELL class="turd:dog:fresh:runny" strength="%100">But it does have some drawbacks.</SMELL>

Microsoft introduces ActiveSmell(tm)

[bero-rh]

Don't worry about this new standard too much... I've just telnetted to 2002.future.timetravel.int and called lynx 4.0 to see what some sites have done.
Seems some people are really using cascading smell sheets, but Microsoft already "invented" a replacement "standard", Microsoft DirectActiveSmell(tm) 2002.
Here's some HTML from the future microsoft:

<IF what=BROWSER type=MOZILLA>
<SMELL class="shit" strength="%100">
We always told you your browser was shit!!!!!
Go get Microsoft Internet Exploiter NT 2002 Plus NOW.
Only $499!
</SMELL>
</IF>
<IF what=BROWSER type=EXPLORER>
<ACTIVESMELL SRC="stp://smell.microsoft.gov/goodsmell.zip" PRICE="$20">
Welcome to Microsoft.gov
</ACTIVESMELL>
Good news:
<ACTIVESMELL SRC="stp://smell.microsoft.gov/rottenapple.zip" PRICE="FREE_TRIAL" TRIALPERIOD="20MIN">
We finally managed to kill another of our competitors - Apple is now rotten!
</ACTIVESMELL>
[...]
</IF>


Seems M$ isn't the only user of this technology though.

Here's a part of slashdot 2002:
Red Hat Linux 10.0 has been released. Big news in this release are Kernel 5.2, X12R1, GNOME 3.0, KDE 4.2, and the possibility to read Windows 2001's FAT33 filesystem. The full source can be downloaded from ftp100.redhat.com.
User comments:
<H2>First post!</H2>
First post! After 13 years of waiting for this chance!
<H2>First post using HTML tags!</H2>
<B>First!!! <COLORIZE COLOR="random">I RULE</COLORIZE></B>
<H2>First post with a smell</H2>
<SMELL class="meat:spam">First post with smell!</SMELL>

Oh, and let's not forget about LinuxTwo (successor to LinuxOne):
<SMELL SRC="http://www.redhat.com/linuxsmell.tar.gz">
<IMG SRC="http://www.debian.org/linux.jpg">
We are NOT just copying stuff from others!!!

A much more lucrative idea

[zyqqh]

Imagine, an international smuggling ring completely destroyed, eliminating a large fraction of organized crime on the entire planet, by one simple idea: .