Forget 3-D TV and Google TV — the next boob-tube innovation could be the return of Smell-O-Vision.
Japanese scientists have successfully adapted an ink-jet printer to shoot little spurts of scent — instead of ink — that could be paired with future TVs and computers to enhance the images onscreen.
“We are using the ink-jet printer’s ability to eject tiny pulses of material to achieve precise control,” Kenichi Okada, of Tokyo’s Keio University, told New Scientist.
Now all the scientists need to do, Okada said, is figure out a way to automatically sync the scents with images — to improve on two early 20th-century flops, AromaRama and Smell-o-Vision.
Both failed due to noisy machinery, inaccurate odor dispersal and, most offensively, the mingling of aromas that lingered too long in the theaters, creating a disgusting combination of smells by the end of the movie.