Ever wish you could send a particular smell to friends and family members via your cellphone? You know, just a 'Hey, check out this incredible funk I just created' type of thing. Well, at least one Japanese company feels this is one of those glaring deficiencies in today's hyper-connected world and they're setting out to fix it.
NTT Communications has started testing what it calls "kaori tsushin," a new technology that allows you to remotely send various odorific emanations to friends, family, anyone with one of the company's special fragrance emitting devices, really. Apparently, this project is an extension of ongoing "fragrance communication" efforts "to enhance indoor environments with pleasing fragrances." Once implemented into cellphones, however, users will be able to choose a selected fragrance from a list, and the "recipe" for that fragrance will then be beamed via the phone's infrared port to a "fragrance device," where said smell can be quickly concocted and dispersed.
From the press release:
NTT says its new technology will push multimedia one step further, making mobile interaction even more personal, and one would imagine, annoying.
*Hey mom, I thought you might enjoy this combination of tuna, dirty socks and burning hair!
Love,
Bryan
NTT Com to Pilot Test Mobile Fragrance Communication Service [NTT Communications via The Inquirer]
