Viridian Note 00407: Aromatizer Contest Entries

Key concepts

Viridian Aromatizer Contest, public participation

Attention Conservation Notice:

Contest entries are tumbling in at an unheard-of rate. I am pitchforking them out in short order, lest they heap up and begin to smell.

Link:

Viridian Design.
http://www.viridiandesign.org

Re: Viridian Note 00406: Viridian Aromatizer

Yes! Another contest!

ViridianRepository has sprung to life and has full details listed.

The Viridian Contest Repository. http://www.viridianrepository.com

Bob Morris

Smell-o-vision option

Pope Sterling,

The Scent-Sampler...

A free computer peripheral paid for by makers of smelly products!

One free Scent-sampler with each computer you buy!

The Scent-sampler is ignited by clicking on a website == for a perfume, soap, cologne, any product with a scent attached to it...

Click on the Scent

sampler, take a whiff == and receive a coupon for whatever smelly product you try!

Approach the folks who already put the smelly ads in magazines, sell them the technology and have a nice vacation...

Where do I pick up my protective hood??

Bill Crawford

Re: Viridian Note 00406: Viridian Aromatizer

I suggest cayenne pepper spray wake-up and cell-phone alarms. Or maybe just coffee, cinnamon, lemon, whatever works.

Defense phones

emitting huge clouds of obscuring smoke, or maybe teargas (just spritz a neutralising agent in your eyes, nose and throat).

Scent tagging

adding scent tags to your graffiti and other forms of personal expression.

What does Mars smell like, anyway? The next Rover must know.

Ideally, this Aromatizer should be two way, containing a scent sampler, so that you would have the ability to ask remotely located conversation partners if the yogurt is off.

With this kind of functionality, hyper-sensitive, genetically modified drug sniffing rats (or maybe just their brains and noses in a vat) could be kept in hermetically sealed locations and law enforcement officers could remotely sniff suspicious packages using cell phones.

The same goes for suspicious packages, and maybe suspects themselves, once a scent-bank is up and running to allow the rats to compare smells.

Outside of homeland security issues, doctors could get the same rats (lemurs, whatever works) to remotely sniff at suspicious tumors, urine samples, etc.

Scent-collecting clubs could exchange rare and complicated scents on the interweb. Scent symphonies and other multimedia art forms could finally become a mass culture phenomenon.

Perfume police could verify the authenticity of pirated samples using wireless access to interweb data banks.

Assuming we loosen up a little, perhaps heavy doses of pheremones and aerosoled designer psychedelics could accompany scent messages, symphonies, exclamation marks, etc.

Aromatizer

Hi Bruce

I don't know what it's like around your house, but around here, one of the most boring jobs every week is getting the family to agree on a shopping list, based on a weekly menu of dinners.

With the Aromatizer, Momma Lisa can spray the

scents of possible delicious meals into the air until she gets a family consensus of which meals are the most appealing. Yum!

Steven

Re: Viridian Note 00406: Viridian Aromatizer

Hooked up to your TV feed, a vocal stress analyzer, and an automatic fact checker/verification engine, the Aromatizer could let you know when something is a little "smelly" in a news report or politician's speech.

Outright lies would produce methane, sulfur dioxide, or similar garbagey/sewery smells. Overly optimistic "spin" would result in overpowering, sickly-sweet smells, too sweet to be true.

Informercials would smell like spoiled meat

= baloney, to be exact.

Truth would smell like fresh air; hopeful news might smell like freshly-turned earth. This application could also be useful for the blind.

/ /skip
Skip Mendler
info: www.skipmendler.com
mime www.serioussilliness.com stuff: www.cafeshops.com/smendler 1984+20 Project: www.1984plus20.org

The Aromatizer

Perhaps, objects that are malfunctioning could smell bad (or at least, distinct). So: A roomful of network servers, each with its own USB Aromatizer dangling out the back.

When a server goes down, it's programmed to start smelling like a thing that has died. This idea is based on the notion that it's easier to find something that's gawdawful offensive than something that's merely malfunctioning, and you're more compelled to fix the problem immediately. Of course, you might want to turn off the Aromatizers for the weekend, lest things smell reeeeeeely bad when you get back on Monday.

Two men are in an elevator, waiting to arrive at their destinations. One looks to the other, with disdain. The second says, "Oh. Sorry," and removes a mobile phone from his pocket. He opens it and starts talking.

The Aromatizer Mobile Phone: Because your farts aren't the only thing that don't smell.

A more serious use might be to medicate hospital patients through their air tubes, or to soothe them with pleasant smells. Instead of a morphine button, you give them a mown-grass or cedar-forest button. Obviously this could have larger-scale applications... Somewhere between the piped-in aromas in Japanese office buildings and the poisonous gas jets in James Bond flicks, all controlled over a Wi-Fi network.

thinkgeek.com will, of course, market a computer automated Febreeze product. Cuz those nerdy geeks sometimes forget to bathe.

Lost your keys? Clap twice and follow your nose.

Thanks for the use of the playground.

Re: Viridian Note 00406: Viridian Aromatizer

Forge Georgeman's Magic Tofu2Meat Machine (ANIMALA Approved)

Your primitive ancestors roamed the Serengeti, striking down lions with hand tools and feasting on their barely cooked flesh. As a modern human person, you recognize that killing animals for flesh is terribly wrong, but still your genes lust after the delicious taste of a grilled steak.

Well, lust no more, because Forge Georgeman's Magic Tofu2Meat Machine (ANIMALA Approved) will transform your boring old tofu into a delicious simulated beef steak, chicken breast, or lamb steak.

Using patented technology from Headspace Technologies in Austin Texas, Forge Georgeman's Magic Tofu2Meat Machine will infuse your tofu with scientifically calibrated scents to make it taste just like real meat. Its microscopic mandibles will rapidly shape stale tofu into a delicious fleshy, stringy texture virtually identical to your target meat. Look, see, smell, taste, chew, and enjoy the delicious smoky aroma of your simulated meat knowing that no animal was harmed in its construction.

Best of all, ANIMALA has carefully examined and certified that Forge Georgeman's Magic Tofu2Meat Machine is 100% free of animal products, and safe for consumption by almost all vegetarians or vegans.

Re: Viridian Note 00406: Viridian Aromatizer

Dear Bruce

Always a pleasure to hear from you.

Possible applications for the smell-emitting device, which I see it as an i-Pod like social peripheral.

A gentler "weekend" alarm clock, emitting smell of coffee or fried bacon at pre set time.

A graduated way of repelling unwanted social and sexual attentions, emitting first cheap scent, then mild bad breath smell, then dirty feet and armpits, finally something approaching skunk-like.

Of course the killer app is something akin to the sexual scent described by Roald Dahl (I think in the short story called Sex).

Couple of questions for Mr Groepler.

Does it record, as well?

Does it produce a range of variables, or is it charged up with specific smell for single applications?

William

William Heath william.heath*kablenet.com Chairman, Kable Ltd,
http://www.kablenet.com

Aromatizer idea == sniffing the ether

Here's an idea:

Ever heard of a software radio? If not, well, it's essentially a general-purpose, broad-band radio transceiver whose characteristics are defined not in HARDware but in SOFTware. Check it out: http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio.

It's a VERY far-out idea.

At any rate, imagine an Aromatizer hooked up to a software radio. The Aromatizer would be tuned to emit certain kinds of smells depending on the kind of EM-signal it's picking up. Intensity of the signal would be represented by the intensity of the smell. This way, with the software radio on in a passive-mode, one could literally smell strong GSM or CDMA signals, standard WM/FM signals, WiFi hotpots, etc. It would be an excellent hands-off interface for a software-radio.

Indeed, the system could show some smarts such that if a new kind of signal is received by the radio (some kind of new device, say) the Aromatizer could synthesize a brand new smell by analyzing the signal (with the help of the software-radio) and then combining previous smells that correspond to the new signal's component wave-forms.

Indeed, this approach could be used in the not-too-distant future when we are covered in ubicomp devices. Imagine that two such-equipped people meet. They want to know if they can trust each other to conduct some transaction. The respective "Whuffie" scores or other Reputation index is converted into a smell by each other's Aromatizer/SoftwareRadio rig. They literally smell each other to determine trustworthiness! Just like a pair of hounds!

A step further in this direction would be to use smells and some kind of crypto system as the basis for all identification situations.

Cheers,
Nigel.

"So high, so low, so many things to know."

Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky

Aroma

Bruce,

My GSM Motorola Quad Band V600 already will blink different colors and flash different pictures linked to the incoming number. Having it emit the favorite perfume of the caller might help my sense memory when I answer. Sometimes I get Natasha and Natalia confused.

You have probably encountered the same smoke filled cafes, streets and elevators of Europe that I am exposed to. For all their civilization, the Europeans just have not picked up on the "tobacco is noxious" idea.

A pleasant eucalyptus might mask the second hand smoke or, fighting fire with fire, a methane aroma, somewhat like necrotic bowels, might be irritating enough to get the smokers to leave.

David

Viridian Aromatizer

What propelled the comic-novelty business, for however long? Seventy-five years? Ninety?

The Joy-Buzzer and the Whoopee cushion, that's what!

And what would be the internet version of the Whoopee cushion? That's right! The Remote Fart Machine, that's what!

Just as the pr0n industry pioneered the way for profitable internet sales, the Remote Fart Machine can re-vitalize moribund Smell-O-Vision technology.

Jim Vandewalker