-----Original Message-----
From: Shadab Husain [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Sunday, 09 July 2006 1:44 PM
To: Kaja, Kiran
Subject: GOOD AFTERNOON
Dear sir, I'm pasting an article, which I found
interesting. I was afraid to post it directly because
I thought it could be off-topic. If you find it of any
worth then please post it on the list.
Ever yours,
Shadab Husain. Gadget to record smells
Online edition of India's National Newspaper Thursday,
Jul 06, 2006
Gadget to record smells
ALOK JHA- GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS LIMITED 2006
IT IS a gadget straight out of a science fiction
story: a machine that can record a smell and play it
back to you at your leisure.
Present it with a designer perfume or freshly baked
bread and it will analyse the odour and reproduce it
for you later using a mixture of non-toxic chemicals.
Engineers hope a successful smell-recording device
could be useful for online shopping - allowing
customers to smell products before buying them - or to
add another dimension to television.
It could even be used by doctors to remotely diagnose
patients, by recreating the smell of blood, bile or
urine to help with a diagnosis.
Pambuk Somboon, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology,
who is leading the development of the smell-recording
gadget, told New Scientist magazine that while aroma
generators have been produced in the past, they have
failed commercially because the number of smells they
can produce has always been limited.
In his system, there are no pre-prepared smells, just
15 chemical-sensing electric noses that can pick up a
wide range of smells.
"In video, you just need to record shades of red,
green and blue," he said. "But humans have 347
olfactory sensors, so we need a lot of source
chemicals."
Once the sensors pick up the various components of an
aroma, it is re-created from an ingredient list of 96
chemicals in the machine.
These chemicals can be tailored to the potential use
of the gadget - a doctor and a perfumier will need to
record different smells.
Drops from the relevant chemicals are mixed, heated
and vapourised. In tests so far, the gadget has
successfully recorded and reproduced the smells of
orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon. "We can even
tell a green apple from a red apple," said Somboon.
Range of smells
Stephen Brewster, a computer scientist at Glasgow
University, in Scotland, studies whether smell can be
used to help people identify digital photos without
opening them.
"It would be interesting to know what range of smells
this new system can detect and recreate," he said.
page
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