What Will The Future Bring?

[Guest guest]

Hi there:

 

I'm Deborah from Chicago, IL, USA. I do patent work and thought I'd share

something I'd come across in my reading. The following is from the cover

story in the November issue of Wired, the computer magazine.

 

" Aromatherapy can now go online. Though its healing powers are debatable,

Bellenson maintains that some oils are definitiely antimicrobial; they may

not kill infectious agents in the bloodstream, but they'll certainly

disinfect the room. Bellenson also believes that odors can play a

significant role in affecting mental states such as depression--and sexual

excitement. Pheromones, which seem odorless, Bellenson points out, 'can

make people feel sexy--or hungry.' Thus gourmet-food distributors could

induce cravings for their products, while XXX-rated Web sites could crank

the user's libido.

 

By early next year, you should be able to seriously sniff around

www.digiscents.com. . . . There's even the prospect, unconfirmed at press

time, of odor broadcasting. . . . A typical scent, using the

Bellenson-Smith encoding format, can be defined with less than 2 Kbytes of

data. " (Platt 261)

 

Bellenson and Smith are working on box that contains certain oils that can

be heated per digital " recipes " received from a computer. I haven't checked

out the web site. The concept's interesting, tho.

 

Deborah