VR headset offers the sights, sounds, and smells of cyberspace - and tastes, and hot air
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted Mar 6th 2009 7:06AM
posted Mar 6th 2009 7:06AM
In an effort to bring the other three senses up to par with sight and sound in the virtual landscape, researchers in the UK have developed a headset that not only offers a stereoscopic display and four speaker surround sound, but throws in smells, tastes, and a fan for heating your grill up (or cooling it down) for good measure. The Virtual Cocoon doesn't look too terribly comfortable (this thing would be burdensome without the required tubes for the user's mouth and nose), but Professor Alan Chalmers of Warwick University doesn't seem to think this is a problem. If anything, the team is betting that you're going to welcome the opportunity to smell your co-workers when telecommuting, or your fellow cybernauts when running around Second Life. The device, which will have an estimated cost of £1,500 (around $2,100), should be ready for production within five years. More pics after the break.
OMG lT'S A LION, GET IN THE CAR!
WHY???? DID THE LION FART?
What happens if the territorial Lion marks the camera housing with his scent???
you don't want to known.
For some reason, and contrary to what we've seen lately, I'm not convinced this progress in virtual reality is what the mainstream porn addict community is interested in.
Long live the New Flesh!
you wouldn't want to watch 2 girls 1 cup with this. smells like icecream?
@onelove
You wouldnt want taste-o-vision for 2girls1cup either
That's somehow frightening and hilarious at the same time...
I mean, look at that thing. It's HUGE!
That's what SHE said (to me)
i have always wondered what lions tasted like
seconded
cool want one!!!! my 3d monitor is getting old...
For god's sake don't visit 4chan with that thing on. Some parts of the internet were not meant to be felt/smelled.
I imagine that 4chan smells a lot like my grandparent's house-- Overwhelming amounts of ammonia and lemon-scented Pledge, but just underneath there's a faint hint of, is that... cookies?
Cookies and fear....
pffft, I'm more worried about accidentally taking a tour of the Tokyo fish-market.
I got ate by a shark man! A BIG FU$%ING SHARK!!
hey! it's equipped with state of the art "... various devices...": tha's what i call investigative journalism!!
Anyone else have a problem with a "smell tube" releasing "chemicals under nose", or the "squirts" device sending sweet, sour, meaty, salty and bitter tasts "into mouth"?
Lol.... i wonder what would be the result of a blue screen on that device? Have anyone seen what happens to a printer when the connection is lost!?
A big issue, in fact. There is NO WAY I am shoving a fucking tube up my nose, and there is no way in hell I am letting it 'squirt' chemicals in my nose. God, that was a PR mistake.
The taste is definitely not necessary. Unless you watch the restaurant commerical.
And smell... I am not sure if technology is good enough... let alone safe enough...
The squirting of sweet, bitter, salty, and sour is the least of my concerns.
WTF is "meaty"? Last I checked that one did not exist, and I REALLY don't want to find out. Last thing I need is to be exploring some place and have some animal run up and share its "beef whistle" with me.
Does it remind anyone else of the Stormbreaker computer in that poor teenage-secret-agent film of the same name?
Great, something that looks like a fifties TV, worn on the head, with the equivalent of 50s reception for everything but the visual.
call me when it's HD-taste and Feelies
I'm not buying anything that has the word "probe" on it.
Oh God, what the porn industry would do with this staggers the mind. And nauseates.
Why would you want your head to look like Stewie on Family Guy?
Finally I can get that "salty" taste squirted into my mouth without having to.....well you know....
Visit the Great salt lake?
YOU know what I mean....
Doesn't anyone else still have a problem with watching "smellivision?" I mean, seriously the multi-modal sensory stimulation ideas are pretty cool but at the same time using this sort of stuff all the time will cause us new problems. Think about the problems already caused by television :P
Maybe it's just a really immersive controller for Second Life?
Having this in Second Life would be a disaster, especially if there was tactile feedback.
Prepare to have your face assaulted by dicks.
the last pic looks like a Japanese guy slurping his humongous soup bowl
A Snow Crash gargoyle?
Now can they design it so you don't look like a moron using it, or has the technology just not come yet?
We have more than five senses...
Eugh, I thought i recognised the daily mail graphics.
Personally I am a little worried about the meaty taste. Since when is meaty one of the five basic tastes and do I really want to randomly taste it? Creepy.
Just not the smartest of ideas..... But Ill bet youll see people lined up for it...
Christ all I'd want this for is to play video games. You can keep all the smelly/tasty stuff.
"The VR headset: Get sprayed by a lion, from the comfort of your couch!"
No. Just... no.
How about we concentrate on getting 3 senses working well, or even 2?
There was an experiment:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28017888
where just using video cameras and a heads up display, and poking a virtual dummy caused people to feel like they swapped bodies (just from 2 senses).
This would be the best for watching Man vs. Wild.
Wouldn't be very hygienic. (The medical probe from 'idiocracy' springs to mind. Man, I wish I had never watched that film.)
I reckon a better idea would be to devise a way to send electrical impulses to the brain and fool it into thinking it can taste/smell things rather than run the risk of spreading infections through physical 'solutions'.
Could you imagine watching a nasty porn with this thing?? Can it spray the smell of syphilis into your nose? OMG *puke*...
I bet that'd be the last time you search for facial.
what kind of taste would you get being around a lion? quirts of cat urine in your mouth?