NTT floats a "Mobile Fragrance Communications" biscuit

The morning has only begun and already the first oddity has been unleashed in Japan. You're looking at NTT DoCoMo Communications "Mobile Fragrance Communications Kit" which is based on the same scent delivery technology NTT has already deployed into homes and movie theaters. Fragrance playlists are downloaded to your DoCoMo phone and then transmitted over Ir to the portable "aroma generator" pre-loaded with base fragrances. The scents are then unleashed into the room under the accompaniment of new-age MIDIs and animated GIFs we presume will include dancing pandas and Hello Kitty cats. Ugh. The pilot program runs from April 10th to the 20th and will undoubtably be a huge success in the land of the uprising robo-san.

[Via Impress]

[Esat Dedezade @ Apr 7th 2008 6:14AM]

Hell, if 'Fried donuts' were a fragnance available, then count me in!

Or better yet, the sweet smell of success, though I'm not sure how you would go about producing that... Probably a blend of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and every other majorly rich and sucessful business men/women around he world, not to mention proffesional athletes e.t.c.

On second thoughts, the 'sweet success' fragnance would probably just smell of 1,5000 different blends of sweat...

I'll pass.

[hypereric @ Apr 7th 2008 6:18AM]

Great. First they added video conferencing... ten minutes into that, "YOU HAVEN'T EVEN NOTICED MY HAIRDO!!!"

Now? "YOU HAVEN'T SAID ANYTHING ABOUT MY NEW PERFUME!!!"

What next, dear Lord, what next must we go through?!?!?!

[Andrew @ Apr 7th 2008 5:47PM]

And just imagine what your WIFE will say!

[Bobs @ Apr 7th 2008 6:29AM]

In other news, clicking reply to reply to a comment now works, back to you Tom.

[derek @ Apr 7th 2008 6:45AM]

your comment stinks!

[Elliott @ Apr 7th 2008 7:14AM]

Why dont we have NTT DoCoMo in this country?

[Ian @ Apr 7th 2008 8:03AM]

Air biscuits....nice

[wjousts @ Apr 7th 2008 8:42AM]

Here's why it won't work:

Aroma chemicals are, generally, very volatile, that's how you smell them. This means a device like this will need to have the chemicals replaced very often. You think changing the ink cartridge in your printer is a pain? That's nothing compared to this.
And since there is no such thing as a "primary smell" (unlike primary colors) to get anything resembling a full pallet of aromas you would need not four (like your printer) but potentially hundreds of separate cartridges half of which you might need to change every day if you want any kind of consistency.
So how much are you willing to spend just to have an aroma enabled internet?

[Esat Dedezade @ Apr 7th 2008 9:51AM]

I don't know how you managed to say something so sensible about such a rediculous product.

But you did.

Take this +1 for your troubles.

[nikola @ Apr 7th 2008 12:41PM]

And the reason you can say this is...............?

You are a nobody on some blah tech blog, NOT getting millions of dollars in R&D to create stuff that is not yet available. We're talking scents not teleportation urinals. jerk off.

[wjousts @ Apr 7th 2008 12:52PM]

@nikola:

Why do I say this? Did you read my fucking post? I thought I explained the reason quite clearly.

I've seen several attempts at this kind of thing crash and burn already. Why do they fail? Because it's a stupid idea to try and pitch this to a home market. The amount of consumables needed for such a device mean it will never be practical.
And that's not even getting into the complexity of people's perceptions of smell and trying to recreate that in any kind of consistent way.

[Tim @ Apr 7th 2008 4:19PM]

pwnage

[phanbouy @ Apr 7th 2008 5:03PM]

@nikola: open bag, remove douche

[Medusa @ Apr 7th 2008 10:17AM]

I had to check this wasn't written on April Fools Day!

[Joe Anstine @ Apr 7th 2008 2:30PM]

I do like biscuits...but wjousts is right. This will not work. It will be a poor product and the idea is just ridiculous. I'm not surprised to see something like this come from NTT DoCoMo but still.

[Andrew @ Apr 7th 2008 5:26PM]

I think the basic problem here is that Japanese focus groups are too polite to say anything negative about ANYTHING.

They should use international focus groups even for domestic products, along with guidelines like "when gaijin expels coffee through nose immediately after being shown product, consider possibility of product being detrimental to corporate credibility"