Today I saw another great episode of ClickOnline on BBCWorld. It had some debates & thoughts about the open-ness of Linux, a brief chit chat with the man himself, Linus Torvalds. But the news that got me up was about the Scent Mail.
According to Tayfun King on ClickOnline, this is a product that’s being tested in UK that allows people to smell their eMails. The gizmo named Scent Dome works on the same principal as an inkjet printer. As an inkjet printer interprets electronic signals & mixes ink to get the right color, the Scent Dome interprets electronic signals & mixes scents to produce the right aroma. 😀 There’s a little fan underneath the scent cartridges which spreads the aroma around the Scent Dome. 😉
People can send smells that they’ve created or use a pre-maid fragrance. 😀
Now this thing has both positive & negative aspects. The positive being that it adds a bit more jazz to eMails, advertisers can send scented eMails, lovers can send scented love eMails rather than scented snail mails. On the business front, consider a website selling aromas & scents online. There are many websites selling the fragrance stuff, flowers, perfumes, incense sticks, you name it. Now these websites will be able to give a sample of what they’re selling, instantly to their users. This’ll certainly help in their sales. This is just one case covering a lot of webites. There are many more uses of it in online business.
But the negative aspect can be a bit stingy, stinking affair. Imagine smell viruses. Virus writers can write codes that’ll produce a stinking smell, on which you might double over. 😉 Some wise guy might try to get back at you by sending a really foul smelled eMail that’ll leave you gasping. 😡
And I’ve just started thinking. I can sure come up with more ways to exploit this thing in more evil ways. 👿
So, what we should ask ourselves is, do we really need any such thing whose many dis-advantages we can count even before its available. Well, I won’t say no to it but I’d exercise extreme caution with a thing like that, b’coz I for one wouldn’t want a peppery smell up my nostrils. 😉
I too heard about that. It looks & sounds good but quite pricey at the moment. At $250 a piece, it sure is a thing you don’t fool around with.
But I think that when it comes out in market & people start buying it, the price will certainly go down. 😀
$250 a piece!! That’s pretty much expensive. I can buy 2 more than decent inkjet printers with that much money. 😉
And I’m not sure that the price will really come down a bit after its launched in the market & if it takes off. On the contrary, the price may go up if it gets popular. 👿
The technology will not allow you to mix terribly offensive odors because the cartridges are preloaded with a controled limited amount of primary fragrances. The cost of a Scent Dome will come down over time. The near end applications are Education, Online Aromacology,Multi-Scensory marketing and Gaming ect..
Well, there need to be some protection in the Scent Dome itself as if a signal is passed to it to create a particular mix, it will be made, as the Scent Dome can’t smell it, it doesn’t know what’s a bad or horrible smell. Smell or Fragrance is an intangible thing, you can’t touch or see it, its got no physical shape or appearence, you can just feel it. 🙂