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Online Aromatherapy in Japan

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the internet-hunting-no-longer-dumbest-idea dept.

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."

5 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. So, someone tell me... by FooAtWFU · · Score: 4, Insightful
    What's the point of hooking this device up to a PC? Why not, just, you know, use the device without a PC? What benefits does hooking it up to the PC bring?

    Let alone hooking it up to the Internet...

    --
    The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  2. Finally! by isny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A useful net product for most slashdotters!

    Damn...there goes my karma...

  3. Been there, done that... by Kerhop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. We could learn from this by 10000000000000000000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:This needs to be hacked. by famebait · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did noone pay attention to this years' nobel prizes this year?

    Medicine was awarded for finally figuring out smell, and it turns out we have thousands of different receptors. Many of them may be activated by several different chemicals to varying degrres, and and a fragrance may contain any cocktail of those chemicals. In other words: no practical odor source can ever cover any significant part of the odor "space" unless it can produce arbitrary molecules on the fly.

    A neural interface would probably be easier, but that field too is not even close to the sort of precision needed for this job.

    --
    sudo ergo sum