Click 'n Sniff

File under "Engineers with wa-a-a-a-y too much time on their hands."

A new service being tested by Tokyo-based NTT Communications Corp. sends out smells according to data received over the Internet.

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.

NTT is considering the system as a commercial product for aromatherapy, testing incense or just plain fun.

In a test version, shown at a Tokyo electronics store this week, the crystal ball sends combinations of 36 scents — natural oils, such as eucalyptus, sandalwood and basil — as horoscope readings.

Just imagine what this could do for Internet dating. You're online, chatting with some hottie, and she/he sends you a IAM (instant aroma message) of sandlewood and musk...or, or...ah, who am I kidding...this is just dumb.

Comments

[double-plus-ungood]

I think that you're failing to see the real use for this -- gaming. Oh, wait, no, Doom would probably stink up the house real bad.

No, don't see a reason for it either. And that whole online dating suggestion just creeps me out. Ugh.

[Mo MacArbie]

Pull my finger...

[knobboy]

Engineers aren't the only ones. Boston Globe (12.08.04):

"A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word 'dude,' contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers."

Linguist deciphers uses of word 'dude'

Has anyone told him nobody cares?

[praktike]

Whatever, dude.

[fdl]

i totally disagree. television into smellavision? i love cooking shows, but miss way too much of the experience. reality shows where you can smell the jungle? perfume ads?

Hearing, sight, smell, taste, touch == Radio, TV, ?, ?, ?. Every time we can broadcast a medium which reaches a previously untapped sense there will be a revolution in the broadcast industry.

Francis

[liberal japonicus]

Engineers aren't the only ones. [from]Boston Globe
Linguist deciphers uses of word 'dude'
Has anyone told him nobody cares?

I need to take up for my brethren here. If you go to the bottom of the article, you will see that they say it is from the 'American Dialectic Society' rather than the American Dialect Society. I suspect (or should I say it's my thesis) that the reporter, looking for an article on a slow news day, went through the abstracts of the ADS and seized on the most obvious point, completely oblivious to any other point the author was making. Hey, it works for Iraq...

[Gromit]

I've always thought that the primary reason smoking appears so glamorous on film is that folks in the movie theaters can see the beautiful patterns of the smoke, but can't smell the acrid fumes coming from the cigarette. Of course, it also helps to have beautiful people doing it.

Anyway, I think this invention, featured on NPR yesterday, is absolutely remarkable in both its ingenuity and its potential benefit to the workforce (and all those who bear the costs of workplace injuries). Or perhaps it is just that I have a particular aversion to sharp spinning blades and amputation. Be sure to watch the demonstration videos.

The angle of the story was even more surprising than the technology itself: according to the inventor, not a single tool manufacturer has shown any interest in licensing it, so he had to come out with his own line of saws.

[victor falk]

wait until people start sending genetically engineered superpheronomes, then you can start talking about crazy...

[liberal japonicus]

A little more detail about the Dude paper.