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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.
Who would want their computer spraying smelly stuff, whenever it felt like it - whether the smell was good or bad. I don't think it would ever smell good, anyway - it would always smell artificial - just like all the air fresheners that are supposed to smell like flowers. Too perfumy for me.
While this is a Whacky technology, it could ad alot VR games like quake or Half-Life or even D&D style games.
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I love the picture of the "typical user" in the article. She's got a nice portable laptop, plus this huge aroma thing that looks like it's too bulky to fit in any laptop bag. Did she bring the laptop and connect the device in case she got a smelly email? Or did she have to go and get the device when she realized she had gotten a smelly email?
Plus, she's eating - her taste/smell senses are already being used. So, now she's eating musk-perfume-flavored stawberries, and we're expected to believe that this is enjoyable? Pretty picture, yes. But poor marketing.
Also: "Telewest says its "scent dome" could cost around 250 and would only work with a high-speed, broadband connection." -- WTF? The device produces only 60 smells - so is 6 bits now too big to send over a slow modem?
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Well, I vaguely remember scientific studies indicating that human memory of scent is much stronger than any other sense, and with better retention. Theoretically, given enough resolution (enough "different" smells), you could odorize threads of messages to be the same, so that when reading new messages on the same topic, the previous content comes to mind more rapidly and accurately.
Chance of this actually being a practical feature? Slim-to-nonesville, population: None.
Am I dreaming? This is like something from the dotcom boomtimes when an idea got more money for seeming wacky and apparently useless.
Human don't use smell very much, anymore. For the most part, it's just figuring out whether the milk is OK to drink, or if the person next to you needs a bath. There are subconscious pheromonal responses, but hopefully they aren't loading this thing up with those. "Yes sir, we discovered the 'buy stuff' pheromone."
Three hundred bucks to have a machine spray a grocery-aisle's worth of air fresheners.
Maybe if we were as smell-focused as dogs, we'd be able to use this as a form of output. HEY! You could assign words different mixes of smells, and train your dog to delete spam!
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Evidentally, you've eaten at different places to me. The following foods are what I would consider "Uniquely British":
1. Fish and Chips, actually the best part of this are the chips - REAL potatoes deep fried in lard! The fish (cod or haddock usually) is also deep fried in batter. Most Fish and Chip shops server sausages, hamburgers and, for the very very brave, some have snickers bars deep fried in batter.
2. Roast dinners. Go to a local tavern on Sunday, enjoy some of the best roast meat you've ever had. Make sure you try the Yorkshire Pudding.
3. Toad in the Hole. Yorkshire pudding with sausages. The Americans have something similar but only about half as good called "pigs in the blanket".
4. Cornish Pasties. Minced beef with vegetables (and spices if you're lucky) wrapped in flaky pastry. Yum!
Curry is becoming well known as the True National Dish of England, even though it's not technically truly English (who cares, anyway?). The Indian food you eat in England is the best in the world.