Scentronic: smells over the internet
Scentronic, a research prototype from Ohio State and Zhejiang Lab, can send certain smells over the internet. Six heated tin-dioxide sensors turn a smell into six signals, and a machine-learning program names the closest match. Only that name travels; a wearable rebuilds a similar smell by shaking fragrance through a metal mesh 110,000 times a second. It knows just five smells, and in a small test people identified them about three-quarters of the time.
- 0:00 The call gag
- 0:07 Freeze
- 0:12 The real thing
- 0:15 Electronic nose exploded
- 0:22 Oxygen and electrons
- 0:30 Pattern and match
- 0:43 Across the internet
- 0:46 Receiver exploded
- 0:53 The atomizer
- 1:02 What actually travels
- 1:10 Reveal and callback