Slashdot Mirror
Online Aromatherapy in Japan
prostoalex writes "USA Today has an article on Japanese telecom company delivering fragrances via the Internet. NTT Communications will send a combination of 36 scents through a crystal ball, which can be attached to a PC."
This can be useful if you're browsing the net with a laptop in the toilet.
With such a limited use (emitting scents), I wonder if the crystal ball would just come with the fortune-telling/aromatherapy software, which interacts with the ball locally, instead of going through the whole web thing.
In the future, maybe a USB ice-cream maker which makes ice-cream of your choice, after you ordered it via Movenpick's website. Or a massaging chair that starts working on you after you have made the payment via PayPal?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Shouldn't it read: "In Japan, robots deliver aromatherapy online"?
Goatse
Oh man.. I can't wait for this to go mainstream..
Goober1: LOLZ I JUST NUKED THAT DUDES SMELL-O-MATIC
Goober2: LOL WHUT SMELL YOU CHOOSE THIS TIME?
Goober1: DOE IN HEET URINE LOL!!!
Goober2: l0l n1ce one d00d
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
Let alone hooking it up to the Internet...
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I'm sure it's much cheaper to go purchase incense from your local hippy.
when these catch on and we have to worry about stink viruses.
A useful net product for most slashdotters!
Damn...there goes my karma...
For example... if you had a VR program which showed a park scene, then you'd emit fresh nature smells. Driving gamers could get to smell the leather seats and burning rubber. Hardcore gamers might well smell blood, sweat and some other undescribables and they chase people around with their BFGs...
The friendliest digital photography forums on the net!
This needs to be hacked. This REALLY needs to be hacked. I want to be able to download ANY smell I want, not just the ones they want me to have based on when my birthday is. (oops, I read the article again)
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
imagine the hilarity of passing gas to your buddy who's on an interview or maybe on a date - or perhaps the smell of really offensive B.O...Imagine the possibilities!
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
This remindes me of iSmell, a vapor ware (pardon the pun) from the dot com era. It'll be cool if they actually get it to work but the complexity of "making" scents leaves me wondering. The difficultly in mixing components for a visual response, paint for example, is hard enough. I'm just not sure it can be done, well that is, for the olphactory systems.
I am invisble, and you can't see me.
Cmmon people its japan. if its useless and has an extension cord theyll devellop and sell it
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
The product and the domain no longer exists, but HowStuffWorks still has an article about DigiScents. There was also Olfacom and iSmell that claimed to do the same.
Don't you mean "USA Today has an article on a telecom company delivering fragrances via the Internet.....in Japan!
C'mon, seriously...why do you think they call it Longhorn? Did you think they wouldn't make their BS operating system smell accordingly? Remember, folks, if it attracts bugs, it must be a feature.
As for the online feature, imagine the latest MSN Messenger function of poo-flinging across the net! Perfect for those bigwig conferences!! Marketing will have a field day with this, I'm sure.
Linux on Gameboy? Definitely. HGTTG movie news? Sure. Stupid Nipponese Smell-Tron? Hell no...
Now there's an application. You can be like those Italian old ladies that smell everything they buy at the market (fruits, veggies, cold cuts, etc).
We're now sending scents over the internet, eh? Well, I believe it is only time until that HP commercial comes true and we can download baseball gloves and cameras, and simply print them out right away!
It's also time to internet pirate smells.
What if you're stinking up the joint sans laptop? What you would have is a spray bottle and a networked sensor. The spray would be doped with a key that the sensor would use to activate the crystal ball after debiting your checking account. This way you cut out the computer.
Users attach a device to their laptops that resembles a crystal ball with a nozzle. The device receives aroma data from the central server and exudes fumes from the nozzle in accordance with that reading.
:-P
Wow.
That.
Is.
REALLY.
Cool.
Where do I get one?
Put a scratch and sniff sticker at the bottom of the pool.
except the crystal ball smells you!
Blue stench of death.
I wonder how long it takes before the thing runs out of smell and needs smell recharge cartridges. It's not the smell printer that costs money you know, its the smell recharge cartridges.
"'Yrch!' said Legolas, falling into his own tongue."
This is what...the 5th time a company has come up with this stupid idea?
It'd be nifty to hack something like this to hook in with something like an MP3 visualization (smellization?) plug-in to change the smells based on the characteristics of the audio.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
A scent deliverer is one thing, but a "scent scanner" would be interesting too.
A device that could record in digital form what an environment smelt like, then it could be reproduced at a later time by something like the crystal ball thing in this article.
The scent deliverer might have to get some more depth. Maybe it could be the next big evolution of output devices... For instance, visual displays (monitors) evolved from 1-bit (monochrome), to 8-bit (256 colors), then 16-bit (thousands of colors), up to the useful 24-bit (millions of colors).
An olfactory delivery device could evolve from something like this crystal ball which might be at 4-bit (thirty something smells) at the moment, up to 16-bit (thousands of smells) in the near future.
Build them into webcams, then geekettes would not only feel oblighed to wear makeup, they'd have to put on their perfume too! And geeks would have to shower more frequently...
Love me.
Thought so. And that's why they went bankrupt.
Does this mean that now my SPAM will well and truly smell like jellied pork?
first it was the nouse and now this. is everything moving from hands to nose?
PORN!!!
Soon geeks will be able to actually smell pussy!
As if we need to give cube mates some other bad habit to distract us with (where the first bad habit might be in { listening to something on the speakers with headphones on... but not plugged in, having intimate conversations with friends and loved ones 3 line-of-sight feet away, ...}.
Smell-O-Vision meets internet meets 2004. Marketing-droids that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Or Something like that.
this could be applied to learining, both in the classroom, and now as this article shows, online.
Smell is directly related to memory
The medial temporal lobe is known to play a role in the processing of olfaction and memory
To me, it certainly seems worth investigating.
So long as there not my crystal BALLS.
I can get that burning capacitor smell from my PC just fine, thank you.
Anyone else remember a satire of such a device created by some (NYC?) ad agency? They made an elaborate web site of the fake product to promote themselves.
and only from Japan
Find me a western company that makes products as insane or remotely close to this.
Great, I can only imagine the havoc when the "I just farted" hack allows you to send smells to your unknowing friends..
"It's better to be a pirate then join the Navy"
C'mon, only 36 scents? I think I'll save my money until they come up with something than can replicate nearly any scent. Imagine: wading through a marsh on your favorite FPS and actually smelling the stink. Would add a whole 'nother dimension to games.
Xierox
id rather have a scratch-and-sniff printer.
Strike up another one for the people of the far east! Horseflesh icecream and now this?
Smell these!
Smell is one of the few reasons left to shop offline. Why go to the mall if you can smell the candles or the perfume? This is just another small step in the progression towards a virtual society. The web has become a commerce network by all rights (remember when it was fun?).
It's too bad that the driving force behind the technological development of the web surfing experience is pure capitalism.
I wonder when we'll see this used to augment recall / retention of information? It's been shown that the association between information and scent is a powerful one, and it may tap into state-dependent learning. e.g. I learn calculus on my PC by researching and maybe looking at the class notes. I do so with the ball set to "vanilla". I then walk into my calculus exam the next day or week with a vanilla bean or some artificial vanilla scent. I then take the exam and experience a lift in information retrieval.
Kick it up a notch, now Emeril has his Smellivision. Has there ever been a more annoying TV personality or moronic zombie audience?
Is bullshit one of the scents this crystal ball delivers?
It would almost have to be since that is what they are selling you.
I forsee the first game using it will be a text adventure game called, "Tour":
You find yourself in a large pine forest. The ground is thickly covered with freshly crushed needles. [pssst]
You see a river to the East.
You see a large clearing to the North.
> E
You have wandered down into a grotto with a wild, frothy river bounding along besides you. [pssst] A large cliff blocks your way to the South.
> W
Pine Forest
> verbose
Maximum Verbosity.
You find yourself in a large pine forest, overflowing with piles of freshly crushed needles.
You see a river to the East.
You see a large clearing to the North.
> aromatic
Maximum Aromaticity.
You find yourself in a large pine forest, overflowing with piles of freshly crushed needles. [pssst]
You see a river to the East.
You see a large clearing to the North.
> N
You find yourself in a lush field of lavenders and paisleys. [psst] You dance in the simple happiness of it.
You see a dense forest to the South.
You see a never-ending garden of roses to the East.
You see a tremendous glacier to the North.
> smell
Smelling... [psssssst]
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
I always want to make something off that little ingredient card, but I'm always out of the ones I need.
Could this be done for movie theaters? Like when Han, Leia and Luke fall in the trash compactor, and Han say's "What a wonderful smell you discovered!" We would "discover" it too! But, then real LOTR's people would have to figure out how long it should last after they left the compactor considering that Luke was totally dunked in it and so you would need to have this slightly disgusting smell for most of the rest of the movie which might make some people sick. And then you'd have to add yet another five minutes of credits to the end of the movie just to give credit where credit is due, so in the end, probably it's not a good idea.
Mo hitotsu no mustaado, onegaishimas!
And immediately after that, a slashdot headline... "Movenpick's USB massage chair hacked!"
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
A computer screen only have to generate three different kinds of light - specifically red, green and blue - because the eye only can see those colours. With varying intensity creating all the other hues.
Oh I found a source: - smell
Does this mean that smellovision is going to replace television?
will send a combination of 36 scents through a crystal ball, which can be attached to a PC
Unlike the average slashdotter who, when attached to PC, only produces one scent...
Have you seen my stapler?
Sure! A two-way tie between Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay!
Man, as I get older my references become less and less cool...
What if CNN got hold of this technology...you could "smell" the reporter in Afghanistan. Maybe then they will find Osama. Smell ya later.
just a web application developer and instructor in Toronto, ON Canada
"HBO (Home Body Odor) announced today it has agreed to screen John Waters' infamous film, Polyester, in Odorama. Viewers who wish to view, er, smell the picture in its original Odorama format will need to purchase the latest set-top box from MicroStink containing the latest https:// (HTTP that Stinks) extensions.
"
I'm surprised the adult industry didn't come out with this first. Just imagine the possibilities!
SNACKS ARE AWESOME
Circulated on usenet about 8 or 9 years ago: Move over RealAudio, because RealAroma has arrived...
If anyone builds those in web-cams... I already shudder in ph34r.
_Some_ geeks have no qualms about stinking like a dug-up corpse in person at the office. And I don't mean as in "oh, it was summer and the poor guy got sweaty pulling some cable through the building", but as in "ye gods, the last time he looked like he's had a bath was in September, and he's been wearing the same shirt and pants ever since too. And that hair is not just dirty, it looks like a helmet already."
Somehow I don't think they'll start washing just for the webcam either.
More likely it'll be "jesus-fucking-christ, it's Mr Stinky calling me on Jabber again."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I am not a perfumer but works with the best of them daily.
"smells, like taste, cannot be mixed together to produce a unique smell/taste in the same way that light (colours) can."
Wrong. All smells (and taste) are a combination of molecules.
The best example can be found in citruses, all of these scents are very different but all are basically a lot of (+)-limonene and small amounts of other molecules, mostly aldehydes:
So if you have such a device and fill it with pure aroma-chemicals, NOT natural accords, you can mix them and have very surprising results.
But a typical Fine Fragrance accord has between 50 and 300 molecules. Each carefully dosed. I can tell you that all the major perfumery houses (IFF, Firmenich, Givandan, Quest, etc...) are working on such devices to ease their perfumers day-to-day work and international collaboration. But the precise dosage is technically very challenging. And contamination of the mix chamber(s) is not helping.
-- p a n a p i c - panoramas des alpes: Mont-Blanc, Mont-Rose, Cervin, etc...
Anyone watch the Futurama episode entitled A Big Piece of Garbage?
In it, the Professor uses his invention, the Smelloscope, to locate a huge meteor composed of garbage (produced by New New York and launched into space because the landfills were full) that threatens to destroy the planet (spoofing the movie, Armageddon). This leads to quotes like these:
Fry: Hey, as long as you don't make me smell Uranus. (laughs)
Leela: I don't get it.
Professor: I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all.
Fry: Oh. What's it called now?
Professor: Urectum. Here, let me locate it for you.
Fry: Hehe, no, no, I think I'll just smell around a bit over here.
Ahh... Futurama, it was ahead of its time.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Somebody's gotta start on writing a driver for /dev/smell0
Although I don't have a lot of time to watch TV, I do like watching Bobby Flay. What's his show called?
The Flay Show?
Of course, I also really like that show about the detective who uses language skills to solve crimes.
The Cunning Linguist.
I don't really have time to watch them both, but fortunately they are shown at the same time on split screen on Channel 69.
Best show: Good Eats.
I'd love to see such a program with that title, if only to see the resulting freak-out after the possible connotation became known. Probably only CBC or BBC could get away with it. Maybe TVO. Of course, it would have to be about TEL and how it can be manipulated to the speaker's advantage.