Smellovision
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You can buy your own smell-o-vision VR headset, if you wanna
Aside from the anguished cries of our loved ones begging us to go to work, there are two things that are left out when we play games in virtual reality: our senses of smell and taste. After all, we can see, hear and sometimes feel the action in the FPS realm, but we won't be truly satisfied unless we're getting artificial blood, sweat and seawater in our faces, too. That's what FeelReal's smell-o-vision headset is all about, which sits beneath a VR headset and pumps air, water and various scents into your face in an attempt to add a little more realism to your gaming.
The gizmo recreating smells in VR looks like a nightmare
Modern virtual reality is pretty adept at tricking your brain into thinking what you're seeing is real, so it seems natural that someone'd try to further that by adding your schnoz to the mix. The guilty party is Feelreal, and it's developed a battery-powered Bluetooth add-on for the Oculus Rift that'll pump seven scents and heated or cooled air into your face, according to The Verge. What do those smells entail? Ocean, jungle, fire, grass, powder, flowers and metal. Only a few of those sound pleasant, if I'm being honest. And based on what The Verge says, my guess is right: the GDC demo went from a soothing rainforest scene replete with a waterfall and actual mist-on-face, to a hellish nightmare that felt like a blow-dryer on the reporter's cheeks at a moment's notice. When it comes to tech and smells, I'll stick to bacon-scented push notifications thank you very much.
Scent generator threatens to waft Odorama into the 21st century
Finally, an invention John Waters can get behind. When the harbinger of filth brought the odiferous experience to screenings of Polyester, he took the scratch-and-sniff route -- including scents like glue and feces -- now a team of researchers at the University of California in San Diego are expanding on the smell-what-you-see concept, albeit in a much more high-tech fashion. In collaboration with the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the team has developed a method for generating odors that could pack the appropriate hardware into a device "small enough to fit on the back of your TV." Basically, scents are produced by an aqueous solution, like ammonia, which is heated by a thin metal wire, and eventually expelled, as an odorous gas, from a small hole in its silicone elastomer housing -- and, bam! You've got Smell-O-Vision. The team has tested its method using perfumes by Jennifer Lopez and Elizabeth Taylor, but have yet to create a working prototype. For the sake of innocent noses everywhere, let's hope Mr. Waters doesn't get a whiff of this.
