We have been talked about for years, smell-o-vision. Imagine being able to smell that big, juicy burger in the commercials. It’s gold from a marketing standpoint because, for years and years, they have had to rely on visual appeal to get you to get up and buy that burger. Not anymore.
A team from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan has developed a “smelling screen” that wafts smells from the display. How does it work? There are these small pellets that are dubbed “aroma chips” that create the smells when heated. Then fans will be creating four airstreams, coming out of each corner of an LCD screen. The user can change the intensity of the smells by changing the strength of the fans. These fans will make it seem like the smell is emanating from particular points on the screen where the object appears. This television has been demonstrated at the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference in Orlando, Florida. They are still working on perfecting it using cartridges that allow you to smell more smells at once because, currently, it can only produce one smell at a time.
We have a few concerns with this new invention, though. Do you really want to be able to smell EVERY smell you see on the television? Dead bodies, blood and other bodily waste, and even the foods you don’t like can be very unappealing. You will also have to sit really close to the television screen to smell it. Remember when your mom used to tell you not to sit close to the tv because it’s bad for your eyes? We already touched on this, but this may add to the obesity problem as we will more likely get up and go buy what we smell on commercials. We are wondering if this will ever come to the United States and, if so, will it be popular? Would you buy this? Imagine how awesome the cooking shows will be!
