Smell Coffee from Your Screen!

Imagine you are watching TV after a long, tiring day at work and there¡¯s a coffee advert playing on your screen. Now imagine, if you were able to smell that coffee from your TV screen sitting right at home! The thick, rich aroma of freshly ground beans assault your senses and take your boredom away. Sounds amazing, doesn¡¯t it? A Japanese scientist has done just that.

Haruka Matsukura at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in Japan developed this ¡®smelling screen¡¯ with a few colleagues. Basically any LCD display screen can be converted to a smelling screen using the technology developed by Haruka and team. The smell will arise not from the entire screen but from that exact spot where the image is being displayed.
But how does this amazing technology work? Vaporising gel pellets are embedded on each of the four corners of the screen and as soon as an image of coffee or any pre-designated food-stuff appears, the pellets release odour into four air streams. Tiny fans installed on/underneath the screen waft the odour parallel to the screen and smell can be maneuvered to seem as if it is arising from a particular spot on the screen.
The air-flow is kept under check and is very mild, creating an illusion that the smell arises from the object visible on the screen. A test model of the screen was showcased at an exhibition in Florida where it was met with much enthusiasm.
While presently, the screen can ¡®emit¡¯ just one odour, the team of scientists say that they are working on a solution where multiple smells can be wafted from your LCD screens. The team is working on incorporating a cartridge, pretty much like the ones we use for printers, under the screen which will allow the smells to be interchanged.
If successful, this path-breaking technology might change the world of advertisements. We can already see a lot more ¡°fragrant¡± soaps and dishwashers queuing up to use this technology and let users get a first hand experience of how good their product smells! While we sure would love to have coffee/tea smells wafting from our screens, we just hope deodorant companies don¡¯t jump in on the bandwagon¡­ Imagine a new ¡®non-gas¡¯ smell wafting off your screen every two minutes¡­ Shudders!
*This research is published under the headline 'Smell-o-vision screens give you a real noseful.'