Posts Tagged Technology
MIT scientists one step closer to artificial nose
MIT researchers report they’ve finally mass produced olfactory receptor proteins — molecules that can smell. Many researchers across the world have been working on e-noses, but the MIT research is based in the biology of the human nose. Previous efforts to make large numbers of artificial receptors have failed because the protein’s structure breaks down when it’s removed from the mucus membrane. The MIT team developed a protective detergent solution that allowed mass production of the molecules. Possible applications for artificial nose technology include sniffing for disease, environmental pollutants, and bacteria.
Read more in BBC
Add comment October 2, 2008
Car makers integrate scent
In an effort to please customers, European car makers Fiat, Peugeot, and Citroen have incorporated scenting technology into the ventilation systems of their vehicles. Scent plays no small part in the driving experience, as we know from the popularity of “new car scent” in auto air fresheners. Opel (a brand of GM Europe) is looking into creating an “aroma organ” that would distribute different aromas to different parts of the vehicle. On the flip side, Audi apparently has a team of “sniffers” that approve every part of a car before it enters production, in an attempt to minimize bad smells from chemicals that are a normal part of the production process.
Read more in the Earth Times.
Add comment October 2, 2008
Electronic noses benefit from polymer-based mucus
British electronic-nose developers have found that adding a mucus layer to their e-nose improves its sniffing ability. Just like the mucus in a human nose, the synthetic mucus used on the e-nose controls the sniffing rate, thereby improving precision and accuracy, as well as length of time required for odor analysis. Some aroma identification that had been challenging for the pre-mucus e-nose, such as distinguishing milk from cream, is now being done with ease. The research team, from the University of Warwick and Leicester University, thinks the mucus-enhanced e-nose could be on sale sometime in 2009. The team is looking into health-care diagnostic uses, including for eye infections, skin diseases and urinary infections.
Read more at Bionic Nose and BBC News
Add comment September 9, 2008
Will scent ever truly make it to the internet?
Did you know that back during the dot-com boom, an Oakland, CA-based company called DigiScents created a USB-connected scent synthesizer called the iSmell? Hooked up to a computer or gaming console, it was supposed to enable scented email, web pages, and games using essential oils and an internal fan. The buzz was so big that it was featured on the cover of Wired magazine. Sadly, lacking the venture capital to move beyond the prototype iSmell machine, DigiScents shut down after two years, and the iSmell was never to be.
Since the failure of DigiScents, Korean technology experts have predicted that internet-delivered scent will be commonplace by 2015. Tokyo, Japan-based NTT Communications has been forging ahead with its own attempts. In 2006 NTT release the USB-connected Aroma Geur device, which syncs scent with what’s playing on the radio, via internet-sent instructions from the radio station. More recently, NTT’s working with the internet-based ability to send scents from your phone, as well as a more sophisticated, internet-controlled fragrance dispenser, currently being used in conjunction with NTT’s scent-emitting signage.
Thanks to CNN for their interesting article about scent marketing and the quest to bring fragrance to the internet, which is what inspired this post.
Add comment August 29, 2008
NTT releases scent-emitting signage to the public
After over 9 months of testing, Japanese telecommunications company NTT has finally made their scent-emitting digital signage available for commercial use outside Japan. The signage is paired with a network-based fragrance communication system: scents emitted are programmed via the internet to correspond with the sound and video display on the sign. The scent-emitting system is available starting at US$1,400.
In trials last year, a cosmetics company said the scent-emitting signs attracted twice as much attention as the non-scented signs, and an ice cream shop increased its sales by 30% with a sign that emitted the scent of vanilla ice cream.
Links:
Add comment August 29, 2008
Scent machines control crowds in Israel
For something entirely different, take a look at a scenting application underway in Israel. Border police on the West Bank have starting using scent machines to control crowds. The machines generate a foul-smelling liquid, and have already been used against Palestinian demonstrators in Na’alin. According to reports, the sprayed victims fled so they could shower and change clothes. The “Skunk” machines are being considered as possible replacements for the more traditional crowd control methods, which include rubber bullets, tear gas, and shock grenades.
Read more at YNet News and Palestine Media Center
Add comment August 11, 2008
Aromatic alarm clock wakes you with bacon
The scent of bacon always reminds me of lazy Sundays, when Dad would be home watching wrestling on TV, and mom would be making pancakes and bacon. Several decades later, thanks to some freaky genius designers, I can wake up to the scent of bacon every morning, and nobody has to cook it for me.
Yep, it’s the Wake n’ Bacon Alarm Clock. Set the alarm before you go to bed, insert some frozen bacon, and say good night. Ten minutes before you want to get up the little halogen lamps inside will heat up and start doing their job. If everything goes according to plan, you will start dreaming about eating bacon, and by the time your eyes open, your dream will come true. Now, there’s an invention I can get behind.
Link: Matty Sallin
Add comment August 8, 2008
