Milon Gupta
Eurescom
gupta@eurescom.de

In 2000 France Télécom R&D started a project on the diffusion of fragrances through telecom networks. Together with ISIPCA, the international perfume and aroma institute, and two manufacturers, Ruetz Scent Systems and AC2i, the French created a prototype for olfactory applications on the Web. The core element of this prototype is a fragrance diffuser, which has stored hundreds of fragrances. The required fragrance, including its length and intensity, is activated from the server side via the Internet using a scent diffusion software.

France Télécom has smelled a wide range of business opportunities for its scent diffusion application, like games, education, tele-medicine, e-commerce, advertising, and tourism. To highlight the service opportunities, France Télécom is designing an olfactory stroll through the vineyards of Burgundy on the Web site of the office for Burgundy wines, B.I.V.B. Digital scent diffusion could also be used as remote aroma therapy for curing malnutrition.

To demonstrate the mobile opportunities of scent applications the French researchers designed a scent game for PDAs called "Drago". It is a culinary competition between two or three teams whose aim it is to concoct the best meal possible for a dragon called "Ventremou". However, for France Télécom this is more than a game. Already in September 1999, they registered for a patent for diffusion of fragrances through telecom networks. For 2003, France Télécom is planning to introduce its fragrance diffusion services on the market. The prize for the diffuser will be in the range of 50 to 150 euro.

Service scenarios are nearly unlimited. Especially in the area of tourism scent diffusion could open up completely new advertising opportunities. Instead of just seeing some tropical places on pictures, you could, in addition, smell the papayas and coconut trees. The vision of German company aerome Scent Technology goes even a step further. For them "scent is an information medium that provides an — to date — unimaginable emotionality and hence credibility and competence in the perception world of products and brands", as they inform us on their Web site. Will "scent branding" revolutionise product marketing?

At least, the euphoria about digital scent diffusion within the perfume industry seems to be still quite restrained. Perfume company Douglas cancelled their plans to make their fragrances available on their Web site, because they doubt that people would buy scent diffusers. Moreover, they argue that people experience scents differently. However, Douglas is putting up odour terminals in their outlets to increase the shopping experience.

While online scents are on the brink of commercial services the two others senses seem to be even harder to address. Companies like Immersion Corp. in the USA have done quite a lot of development in the area of touch technologies for enabling immersion applications. The digital use of the sense of touch could be used in medicine, entertainment and in the automotive sector. Immersion Corp. is developing simulators for medical procedures, which use tactile feedback to make the experience as realistic as possible. However, this is still far away from the real experience.

The sense of taste is even harder to digitise. It seems that emulating taste should not be too difficult, as there are only the four well-known tastes sweet, salty, sour and bitter. However, many details of our taste system and the working of our taste receptors are still unknown. This is underlined by the recent identification of a candidate for a fifth basic taste called 'umami', the taste of monosodium glutamate, characteristic of protein-rich foods. Despite these problems, there is already a tasting device available. It is a hand-held tasting device called 'electronic tongue' by EMBRAPA Instrumentação Agropecuária from São Carlos, Brazil. The device has been designed for accurate and reliable taste measurements for companies currently relying on human tasters for their quality control of wine, tea, coffee, and other foods. Electronic tongue cannot compete with human tasters if it comes to subtle products, such as fine wines, but what makes the device a serious rival for human taste buds is the fact that it never tires and does not lose its differentiating edge. A tasting device for online use has not yet been designed, as far as we know. However, it is probably just a matter of time until this will be done as well.

What is the bottom-line? Cyberspace is not yet the "consensual hallucination" as which, William Gibson, the inventor of this term, has seen it. The digital hallucination on the Web is still far from being complete. However, for the first time in history it is now theoretically possible to emulate all five senses and communicate multi-sensual information via telecoms networks. The complete digital hallucination for all five senses is very likely to occur. The only open questions are 'When will it happen?' and 'What will be the consequences for our lives?'. Read, hear, feel, smell and taste the answers in one of the forthcoming issues of Eurescom mess@ge.

References and links on the covered topics are available in the online edition of Eurescom message at www.eurescom.de/message .