ISMELL TECHNOLOGY

3.1  WHAT IS iSMELL ?

 Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to smell the flowers that you order online before purchasing them? Or be able to “taste-smell” a variety of perfumes while surfing the web?

            DigiScents,Inc, introduced its iSmell system in November 2000, which scent-enables web sites, e-mails,interactive games,on-line advertising,and many more. The iSmell is a personal synthesizer that emits a broad range of fragrances.

            ISmell Digital Scent Technology is a complete solution for the digitization,broadcast and synthesis of smells to accompany all forms of media! ISmell is a plug-in computer accessory that contains a basic palette of scented oils from which a bouquet of different smells can be created.Just as we can download digitized music and play it through speakers attached to a computer,we should soon be able to acquire online scent data that a little gadget can play back as smells. Ismell device can be linked via serial cable,sits a black plastic box 3 inches tall,2 inches wide and 5 inches deep,about the size of an electric pencil sharpener. Sometimes inside it a little fan is attached that starts whirring,drawing in air at the back and blowing it over tiny cials of oils that are being heated selectively in response to signals from  the computer. The air picks up the oily fragrances and wafts it out through a 2 inch vent.Digiscent has proposed four models of iSmell device among them one is slightly smaller than telephone and others are of fin-shaped.

                  Now, when shopping online,you may soon simply click on a perfume and smell it through your computer! Or you may be able to send an email to your friend woth the smell of  roses or chocolate! Or, how would you like to play video games and smell the environment you are playing in or watch a movie that gives you the scent of an autumn bonfire!

               So,what will iSmell technology achieve? It will make advertising more engaging and memorable.

 3.2 How Does it Work?

The iSmell device was incorporated in February 2000 by DigiScents founders, Joel Lloyd Bellenson and Dexster Smilth. DigiScents developed the iSmell scent "player" and scent cartridge. The cartridge, modeled after a print cartridge, is made up of scent creating materials similar to those used in the food and cosmetic industry. The iSmell device, which is pictured above, attaches to your computer and "plays" small amounts of scent.

Here's how the overall program works:

* DigiScents indexes thousands of smells based on their chemical structure and their place on the scent spectrum

* Each scent is then coded and digitized into a small file.

* The digital file is embedded in Web content or email.

* A user requests or triggers the file by clicking a mouse or opening an email.

* A small amount of the aroma is emitted by the device in the direct vicinity of the user.

The iSmell cartridge contains 128 primary odors. When these 128 odors are mixed, thousands of other scents are created. The iSmell device can be turned off at any time and users can block any unwork.

 BROADCASTING OF ISMELL

4.1  DigitizedScent.

A scene is indexed along two parameters, its chemical makeup and its place in the scent”spectrum”,and then digitized into a small file.

 4.2  Broadcast.

                  The digital file is scent, attached to enhanced web content.

 4.3  Synthesize.

 DigiScent’s  iSmell, which connects to the user’s computer like a set of speakers, synthesis the smell from a palette of “primary odours”, following the guidelines of the digital file.

             iSmell technology turns smell into digital codes that can be stored on laser discs or as computer files, and it can even be emailed. It reads the digital scent file, creates a smell from a ”palette” of 128 chemicals stored in a catridge, which  wafts into the air with a small fan.

 4.4 The complete product:

DigiScents is developing a complete solution for scent-enabling the Internet and all forms of digital media, including:

                    iSmell Personal Scent Synthesizer: A computer peripheral device which recreates Scent Objects by mixing and releasing one or more of 128 scents. The device includes replaceable cartridges similar to those used in color printers.

4.4.1  ScentPalette Cartridges:

                    Consider cartridges contained inside the iSmell device. The cartridges are filled with over one hundred different fragrant materials that are emitted alone or incombination. In  addition to the general purpose of Scent Palette there is a possibility of creating industry Specific cartridges for every thing from fragrances and food to games and movies.

 WHAT IS “ScentWare” AND HOW DOES IT WORK? 

“Sentware” is a combination of SoftWare and Hardware.

There are two types of software. One allows you to “Design” your own custom fragrances, and the other allows you to receive the codes for a custom scent and have them activate a spray device so you can smell it.

            The design  software is often as simple as a web page with pictures of familiar scents (apple pie, popcorn, fresh rain, flowers ) that you can “drag” with your mouse into a virtual beaker and mix. The combinations you choose can be saved as a custom fragrance, which gets stored as “codes” to be passed to a spray device.

            The spray device is a piece of hardware that can be plugged into one of the serial ports of your computer, the way a printer plugs in. This device has a disposable carteidge with a number of chambers inside, each containing a chemical compound that can be mixed with others to match the custom scent you’ve created.

5.1  iSMELL A SNORTAL ON THE WEB

 Smith said the pair got the idea of wiring the Internet for smell
 during a vacation in Miami's vibrant South Beach.
                  ``We were overwhelmed by the perfumes that people were wearing, all  the sensory input,'' Smith said. ``We thought: This is a biological phenomenon, this is in our domain. We should be able to understand this and build a company out of it.''
                    They quickly got building and soon the Oakland, California-based  DigiScents had the concept down.
                    First, there is the ``iSmell,'' a plug-in computer accessory that will  contain a basic palette of scented oils from which a bouquet of
 different smells can be created.
                    Functioning like the MP3 players that download music from the
 Internet, the iSmell will take its orders from DigiScent's
                  ''ScentStream'' software, which will translate online digital cues for different smells into specific orders for the portable perfume factory.
                    To ensure odor authenticity, DigiScent has created a ``Scent
 Registry,'' a digital index of thousands of scents that the company will license to developers to integrate into games, Web sites, advertisements, movies and music.   To round it out, the company plans to create a ``Snortal'' on the Web  to give people a chance to sniff for themselves.
                    There is real science behind all this. Bellenson, who once ran a
 Stanford University lab specializing in DNA synthesis, has drawn up
 models for the way odor molecules bind with the some 10 million
 odor-detecting neurons on a human nose, a step toward establishing the
 Scent Registry that will underpin the concept.
                     DigiScent's founders hope that by licensing their scent spectrum, they  will create a world of smells for the Internet generation -- perfumes
 you can smell online, computer games with the whiff of the jungle or
 the tang of jet fuel, movies that give audiences the scents of an
 autumn bonfire.

 ``The sense of smell is closely tied to memory and emotion, making  scent a powerful way to reinforce ideas,'' Bellenson said. ``If a
 picture is worth a thousand words, a scent is worth a thousand
 pictures.'

5.2  Smell-o-Vision!

"Smell-o-vision?" Just what are we talking about here? In the past century we became used to the transmission of sights and sounds through the airwaves and via the Internet. In essence, "transmission" of visual and auditory information relies on the electronic coding of waves of electromagnetic energy (light waves) or of waves of vibrations in a medium (sound waves), the sending of this coded information, the decoding of this information in a receiver (radio, television, computer, etc.), and the creation of new light or sound waves based on this information.  But scents? Odors? Smell and taste are the chemical senses. How do we transmit chemicals via the Internet? Although the concept sending digitized scents via the Internet from computer to computer may have seemed bizarre a few years ago, a number of companies are creating hardware and software that will enable it (Biersdorfer, 2000; Poniewozik, 2000).