Surround smell

Youhave the surround sound, the widescreen, the high definition. Yourchoice of lights, screen, sound. The next step is, and has been for along time, quite obvious. Smells! As virtual realitycontinues to become a more and more realistic situation, designer DavidSweeney allows our nose to enter another false reality: the smelljungle.

Designer David Sweeney sets the nose game on its' self?These devices harness the fact that smells evokememories and can alter the way we think. They notify us of importantinformation, but in a non-intrusive & subconscious manner.This provides an alternative to receiving all our daily informationthrough our eyes and ears, instead routing some of it down an olfactorychannel. By autonomously observing our environment and our interactionwith information sources, a Quale diffuser learns to associate a uniqueblend of smell with a specific event. The device can then triggerreminders or particular physiological states by replaying these smellsat relevant times throughout the day.This device is to the nose, what a loudspeaker is to the ears. Bothare be infinitely configurable and can display information across awide spectrum. The diffuser has a collection of 16 crafted scents, eachdistinctive yet novel. The oils are accurately blended by passing themthrough piezoelectric micro-pumps onto a piezo diffuser.The resulting mix is broadcast into the room by a fan. The devicecreates a constantly adapting smellscape. Some elements of the scentconvey information while others complement these by evoking awarenessbeyond the task in hand. Smells for this project were designed bySissel Tolaas at the IFF re_search Lab in Berlin.

Source: yankodesign.comAdded: 16 December 2008