Now, products are coming out that seem like science fiction! A strong visual experience combined with the right Scent can immerse you in an experience like nothing else. Scent produces the memories from the fresh smell of fresh cut grass, the musky smell of a forest, or the excitement of the beach.<\/p>\n
Scent can take us places in our memory and those memories can make a pretend experience real.\u00a0 This originally \u201cscience fiction\u201d conversion to \u201cscience fact\u2019 has tremendous possibilities.\u00a0 In an early Scent Narrative, we discussed the future of Scent Media.\u00a0 Almost 70 years ago in 1951, renown American science fiction author, Ray Bradbury, wrote a collection of eighteen science fiction short stories called The Illustrated Man, with many futuristic visions, including Scent.<\/p>\n
In it, he describes a children\u2019s nursery as transforming into the African Serengeti, as technology replaces parents as storytellers. The book, a staple of Baby Boomers, has a recurring theme throughout; the conflict between the cold mechanics of technology and the psychology of people. In it, dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. All of this is happening today, with Titans like Musk, Bezos, and Branson all designing their own spacecraft. The science fiction technology of our past is now a part of our every waking moment. Bradbury brings technology to life conflicting with the most primal human natural instincts. In the provocative story, <\/em>the Scent technology profiled is called odorophonic. \u00a0<\/em> This odorophonic experience completed the feeling of the immersive environment:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOdorophonics\u201d added the missing element to the reality of the experience. A generation grew up with this concept of a \u201creality\u201d as the \u201cholodeck\u201d, a fictional plot device from television’s Star Trek<\/em>. It\u2019s presented as a staging environment in which participants may engage with different virtual reality environments that feel and smell.<\/p>\n This week, Nvidia has unveiled its new Holodeck photorealistic VR platform for designers and developers.\u00a0 The Nvidia Holodeck <\/strong>in an \u201cintelligent virtual reality platform\u201d (it is really named the \u201cholodeck\u201d https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=hUsP7fsjrdg<\/a> ) created for collaborative virtual environments with simulated real-world physics, highly detailed models built using photorealistic graphics at a life-size scale. \u00a0This environment is the ideal place to create more immersive environments, Scent can be added as new Scent technologies are available now.<\/p>\n Nvidia\u2019s Holodeck is aimed at helping designers prototype, review and tweak designs to bring products to market faster. Game designers can use it to create new environments. The Holodeck is also AI-ready, to build real-world conditions.\u00a0 Now, they can anticipate actions and reactions deploying avatars in the virtual space. \u00a0They can test their designs against virtual operators. Nvidia\u2019s Holodeck has been acknowledged as a game changer by top architects, NASA engineers, and cutting-edge designers.<\/p>\n Collaborative VR design tools are catching on in a big way among automakers, who are trying to catch up with the speed of development in cellular phones.\u00a0 Now, they can build out initial trials quickly in vehicle design. As we have noted in earlier Scent Narratives, automotive is the next big area for Scent and the Holodeck could speed development.<\/p>\n Scent is offering a \u201cWake Up Call\u201d, literally.\u00a0 The idea of being able to reproduce a wide variety of odors (or scents) with a machine as a part of the experience was once just imagined. Forty years ago, science fiction author, Frank Herbert, described waking up in the morning by a scent-producing alarm clock\u00a0from\u00a0The Dosadi Experiment<\/em><\/a>,<\/p>\n Today for about $100, you can have an alarm clock that uses Scent with a “timed release of an aroma of your choice”The device functions like a programmable coffee maker, using reusable scent capsules. Each capsule lasts for “30 awakenings” before you need to replace it. Aromas are bundled in packs ranging from \u201dEspresso\u201d to \u201cCroissant\u201d even chocolate. Claiming internal testing shows this scent-based alarm wakes 99% of people in 2 minutes.<\/p>\n In this case, Science does not support Science Fiction. Scents will not rouse us from sleep, according to Brown University.\u00a0 Researchers studied 6 participants in their early 20s and the effects of 2 Scents: pleasurable Peppermint and offensive Pyridine (Pyridine is a common byproduct of fire).\u00a0 The findings indicated that sleep is, in fact, a period when senses are limited. \u00a0In fact, there\u2019s a significant alteration of perceptual processing as a very function of sleep.<\/p>\n People cannot rely on their sense of smell to awaken them to the danger of fire.\u00a0 The 2004 Brown University study titled \u201cMinimal Olfactory Perception During Sleep: Why Odor Alarms Will Not Work for Humans<\/u><\/em>\u201dactually pre-dates the alarm clock.<\/p>\n\u201cThe nursery was silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon. The walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood in the center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline distance, it seemed, and presently an African veldt appeared, in three dimensions, on all sides, in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun. George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow.<\/h4>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get out of this sun,\u201d<\/em> he said. \u201cThis is a little too real. But I don\u2019t see anything wrong.\u201d<\/em><\/h4>\n
\u201cWait a moment, you\u2019ll see,\u201d <\/em>said his wife\u2026<\/h4>\n
Now the hidden odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the two people in the middle of the baked veldt land. The hot straw smell of lion grass, the cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of animals, the smell of dust like a red paprika in the hot air.\u201d<\/h4>\n
Ray Bradbury The Illustrated Man <\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Holodeck becomes real.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Speeding to market with new environments.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Scent as a \u201cWake Up Call\u201d.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
“The odalarm awoke Jorj X. McKie with a whiff of lemon. For just an instant his mind played tricks on him. He thought he was on Tutalsee’s gentle planetary ocean floating softly on his garlanded island. There were lemons on his floating island, banks of Hibiscus and carpets of spicy Alyssum. His bowered cottage lay in the path of perfumed breezes…\u201d<\/h4>\n
The <\/strong>Odalarm exists.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Unfortunately, it doesn\u2019t work: Not all scent claims are scientifically accurate.<\/strong><\/h4>\n