Brits Still Working on Stinky Email

prostoalex writes "British Internet provider Telewest Broadband is testing a system, which allows people to attach specific smells to their e-mail. It works with air freshener cartridge that one plugs into PC. The technology is developed by a US-based company Trisenx, which features the products and pricing on its Web site. A 20-channel serial port device costs $269, the same price for optional software package allowing the user to author specific smells. The replacement cartridges are $48 each." They're hardly the first attempt at adding smell to the computer experience. Digiscent didn't work out so well.

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DigiScents iSmell Digital Scent Technology

[SimHacker]

Coincidentally, I'm wearing my dirty old "iSmell" swag t-shirt, as I type this. Be glad you can't smell it...

About 5 years ago, DigiScents developed a product called the iSmell, which was covered by Wired Magazine. It was even on the memoriable cover. They hired Marc Canter to be their visionary spokesguru:

In Bellenson's apartment, Marc Canter has been lying on a postmodern faux-leopard-skin couch with his eyes half closed, listening as Bellenson and Smith outline their grand vision. He rouses himself now, like a lugubrious guru, a veteran of more than half a dozen projects pushing the state of the art. He wishes to make a statement about trends that lie ahead.

"There is a new paradigm for tools," he says. "In the old days, they were shrink-wrapped pieces of software; you sat down and read the manual and used the tool. Nowadays, the tools are free. And what we need are scalable content tools. Look at Hollywood: They take a movie and amortize the cost among multiple forms, from cable TV to toys. On the Web, we haven't been able to do that, because it's just a delivery medium. But if all the content can be decoupled" - in other words, if it can exist separately from any particular format - "I can output a low-end Web site, a medium-res CD-ROM, and a high-end broadband version, all from the same ideas. In the smell world, this means 16-pack cartridges that do only a few smells, or big systems that do thousands."

"We expect to have low-end and high-end iSmell hardware," Smith agrees. "The low end may retail for under $200. The smell cartridges - even at the high end - will probably cost under $50." With moderate use, he guesses, they should last a few months.

"The key, as always, is the installed base," Canter says. "But there's so many different target markets. It'll be easy to get overwhelmed. You'll need a staff of 15 people just to answer the phones. We'll do the usual things - developers' kits, conferences, seminars, T-shirts, hats, all that stuff." The prospect seems to overcome him with ennui, yet he appears convinced it will work.

[...] "I think aesthetic disclaimers will be more important," adds Canter. "You know, when PageMaker was first released, it created a lot of really ugly pages. I'll be surprised if 10 percent of the first smell output is bearable."

This is, after all, a totally new art form.

"We know when the first visual art was done, in cave paintings," Canter continues. "And the first musical art consisted of tribal people beating drums. Think of all the books written about musical and visual arts since then. Now show me the library on smells."

They even had an SDK for programming the device. I talked with them at the game developers conference about a game I was working on that might benefit from smell. They thought it would be more fun, if you could smell when The Sims needed to take a shower, pissed their pants, or set the house on fire.

For some reason, DigiScent's iSmell Digital Scent Technology never took off.

-Don