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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.

  1. 0:00 The call gag
  2. 0:07 Freeze
  3. 0:12 The real thing
  4. 0:15 Electronic nose exploded
  5. 0:22 Oxygen and electrons
  6. 0:30 Pattern and match
  7. 0:43 Across the internet
  8. 0:46 Receiver exploded
  9. 0:53 The atomizer
  10. 1:02 What actually travels
  11. 1:10 Reveal and callback

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