The Technology Makes ScentsA) "Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel," said the 19th-century physician, poet and Harvard professor, Oliver Wendell Holmes. No wonder, then, that technologists have long sought a way to transmit smell electronically. Imagine being able to send from your phone not just a photo but the aroma( 芳香) of freshly mown grass, the scents of an exotic spice market or of a brand new perfume, and know that the recipient would instantly experience it. "Smell-and taste too-are going to be the next important dimensions for communicating by computer," says Adrian Cheok, professor of pervasive computing at City University in London. "They are the only senses connected with the limbic system(边缘系统）in the brain, which is responsible for emotion and memory. But it's difficult to transmit smell because it's analogue(模拟的). It's like sound before MP3. "
B) The 42-year-old Australian electrical engineer is dedicated to bringing all five senses into communication and has a nose for(对敏感) commercial potential. His team's first smart phone smell product, Scentee, made by a Japanese company, is already selling 10,000 $ 30 units a month in Japan,traditionally the most receptive first market for eccentric technology products. It may soon make in-roads in the US. Bacon company Oscar Meyer earlier this year offered as competition prizes 1,000Scentees. The idea? For winners to programme their iPhone alarm to wake them with the aroma offrying bacon. Other innovators are working in this area too. Israeli inventor Amos Porat claims tohave shown a prototype of his digital smell dispenser, Scentasia, to enthusiastic toy manufacturers inthe US. Scentee is analogue in that it is chemical-based. It resembles a pipe bowl that connects to theheadphone socket of an iPhone 5 and, when triggered by text or alarm, emits a puff of, typically,bacon, coffee or lavender. Scentee can produce only one smell at a time, so the recipient has to havethe right cartridge (套筒) fitted to get the olfactory (嗅觉的) message as intended. But on ProfCheok's lab bench is the next prototype, which can produce 10 smell combinations.
C) "Once these technologies come together, we'll have high-fidelity capture and transmission of smell,"Prof Cheok says, speaking in a workshop full of electronic components and soldering irons. "Therewill be something like an ink-jet printer, with maybe 100 valves in a unit and real time combinationsto create many smells. " While this is theoretically possible, he admits he has not actually done it yet.
D) Corporate researchers are also looking into this area, however. Prof Cheok produces from his book-shelf a 2013 academic paper showing that this field may already be beyond the merely strange. It isentitled "Development of Highly Sensitive Compact Chemical Sensor System Employing a Microcantilever Array and a Thermal Preconcentrator". Its authors include someone from Olympus in Japan.
E) But how convincing is the existing City University kit? Prof Cheok demonstrates some smells createdand bottled by the renowned Mugaritz restaurant in northern Spain, which is working with his depart-ment on smell transmission. For a restaurant, transmitting smell by Internet could be a great publicitytool. The first Mugadtz aroma, of sesame, is easy to recognise. The second, which I fail to guess,is saffron. The third, which I get with prompting, is black pepper.
F) Prof Cheok's department is already working on the next level for smell transmission, which is wherethe technology goes from being partly analogue to wholly digital. "So the issue becomes, can we getaway from the chemicals by stimulating smell and taste with electrical or magnetic signals?"
G) Prof Cheok produces a crude device that electronically creates artificial taste in the brain. It is a rawcircuit board with a metal part sticking out. He asks me to put my tongue on this, promising it hasbeen cleaned with alcohol. An assistant clicks on her laptop and I get a distinctly sour sensation.Sweet, salty and bitter, he says, are in development. For electronic smell, the department is collabo-rating with a neuroscience lab in France specialising in "emotional perception". "The olfactory bulb(嗅球) is harder to access than the tongue, buried behind the nose, so probes would be painful," heexplains. "So the idea might, be a small magnetic coil in the mouth and a pulsed magnetic field thatwill generate currents in the olfactory bulb. It could take the form of a mouth guard kind of thing. "He suggests making food taste salty by embedding a taste probe on to your fork and knife.
H) Prof Cheok envisages electronic taste transmission might lead to the development of "digital food",he says, "People will transmit a flavour over the internet. " As with digital music, people will be a-ble to use the technology to invent new flavours. "It won't just lead to reproduction of coffee orwhatever, but we will digitally invent completely new kinds of food based on digital smell andtaste. "
I) A full professor at 36, Prof Cheok's accessible TED-talk manner, along with the proven demand in its test market for Scentee, gives even his arguably more left field predictions a whiff of plausibility. Af- ter all, if there is one constant that perhaps explains why some sceptically received inventions succeed where others fail, it is that they appeal to basic human emotion and the desire to communicate.
J) Lest any bodily sense should feel left out, Prof Cheok then turns to communicating touch by comput- er, an idea that was being discussed 30 years ago when virtual reality was in vogue. Except, as with Scentee, Prof Cheok and his disciples have already been there and sold the T-shirt, so to speak. James Teh, a former PhD student, has spun off a Singapore company, www. mytjacket, tom, making re- motely controlled "hugging jackets" for autistic children( 自闭症儿童), who are especially receptive to a hug, even if it is delivered by a parent thousands of miles away from his phone. It is impossible, of course, to predict if any of Prof Cheok and his team's inventions will take off. However, with their focused attention to those all important human emotions, and the raw evocative(唤起的）power of smell in particular, it is hard not to feel they are in fertile territory.