Fwd: Device records smells

Begin forwarded message:
>
> here's a new medium for you.
>
> Device records smells to play back later
>
> * 29 July 2006
> * NewScientist.com news service
> * Paul Marks
>
>
> IMAGINE being able to record a smell and play it back later, just
> as you
> can with sounds or images.
>
> Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan are
> building an
> odour recorder capable of doing just that. Simply point the gadget
> at a
> freshly baked cookie, for example, and it will analyse its odour and
> reproduce it for you using a host of non-toxic chemicals.
>
> The device could be used to improve online shopping by allowing you to
> sniff foods or fragrances before you buy, to add an extra dimension to
> virtual reality environments and even to assist military doctors
> treating
> soldiers remotely by recreating bile, blood or urine odours that might
> help a diagnosis.
>
> While a number of companies have produced aroma generators designed to
> enhance computer games or TV shows, they have failed commercially
> because
> they have been very limited in the range of smells they can
> produce, says
> Pambuk Somboon of the Tokyo team.
>
> So he has done away with pre-prepared smells and developed a system
> that
> records and later reproduces the odours. It's no easy task: "In
> video, you
> just need to record shades of red, green and blue," he says. "But
> humans
> have 347 olfactory sensors, so we need a lot of source chemicals."
>
> Somboon's system will use 15 chemical-sensing microchips, or
> electronic
> noses, to pick up a broad range of aromas. These are then used to
> create a
> digital recipe from a set of 96 chemicals that can be chosen
> according to
> the purpose of each individual gadget. When you want to replay a
> smell,
> drops from the relevant vials are mixed, heated and vaporised. In
> tests so
> far, the system has successfully recorded and reproduced the smell of
> orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon. "We can even tell a green
> apple
> from a red apple," Somboon says.
>
> Smell researchers are interested in the institute's work. "It would be
> interesting to know just what range of smells this new system can
> detect
> and recreate," says Stephen Brewster, a computer scientist at the
> University of Glasgow, UK, who is studying whether smell can be
> used to
> help people quickly identify digital photos without opening them.
> "This
> could be an interesting delivery system for our work."