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posted by on Sunday February 19 2017, @11:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the food-smells-good dept.

Though consumer virtual reality is still in its earliest days, VR's utility for influencing perception has been studied for years, and combining VR and scent has been explored, too, by both academics and companies. Li, who's working with working with Jeremy Bailenson, the founding director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab, thinks the combination of smell, touch, and VR could be used in a bunch of different ways in the future—some more dystopian-sounding than others.

Imagine a world where, say, salmon has become extinct. Maybe you could use a virtual piece of salmon sushi, a salmon-like smell, and a real chunk of some other fish in the middle of a hand roll to give people who've never tried it a sense for what it's like to eat salmon sushi. Or perhaps using scent along with virtual reality could help you eat a healthier diet without feeling that you're missing out. You might see and smell a juicy cheeseburger while actually chomping on a plant-based patty.

The possibilities are endless.

[Ed. Note: We held this story back because when it was submitted we had recently run another VR scent story. This one has a different aspect.]


Original Submission

Related Stories

"Smell-O-Vision" Comes to VR in the Form of "OhRoma" Gas Mask 14 comments

It's time to wake up and smell the next frontier in virtual entertainment:

CamSoda's OhRoma features two canisters that attach to the front of the device. Each canister includes three slots for scent cartridges that you can swap out to customize the experience. CamSoda said it developed over 30 different aroma canisters, which include "sensual" scents that simulate the smell of body odor, pleasing environments, and stimulating aphrodisiacs.

The company also developed a mobile app that interfaces with the OhRoma mask and lets you select what you would like to smell during the experience. OhRoma can also sync with another immersive product that CamSoda launched last year called Teledildonics, which replicates the sensations of sex. Teledildonics allow people to have "sex" over the internet with another partner. And with OhRoma added to the mix, CamSoda offers a completely virtual experience that stimulates four of your five senses.

Unlike Ubisoft's Nosulus, CamSoda's version of Smell-O-Vision is not a joke. You can order CamSoda's OhRoma device today. The face mask alone will set you back $70, and you can purchase individual scent packs for as low as $6. CamSoda also offers a combo pack, which includes an OhRoma mask and a complete set of all 30 scents, for $99.

Here's the Nosulus Rift from last year.


Original Submission

New Generation of Deodorants Could Target Bacterial Transport Protein 23 comments

New generation of deodorants 'on the way'

Experts believe they have found a better way to tackle body odour (BO). The key, they say, is understanding how skin bacteria create the smell from virtually odourless armpit sweat.

Two teams, at the Universities of York and Oxford, say they have now deciphered the first step in this molecular process. It could pave the way for a new generation of deodorants designed to block this unpleasant chain of events, the journal eLife [open, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.34995] [DX] reports.

[...] Co-author Dr Gavin Thomas, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said: "Modern deodorants act a bit like a nuclear bomb in our underarms, inhibiting or killing many of the bacteria present in order to prevent BO. Only a small number of the bacteria in our armpits are actually responsible for bad smells."

These Staphylococus hominis bacteria use a "transport" protein to recognise and swallow up the odourless compounds secreted in sweat that they convert into BO. And Dr Thomas and colleagues say this could be used as a blueprint to develop a more guided weapon against BO - a new type of spray or roll-on deodorant containing a substance that would stop the transport protein from functioning.

Related: Get a Whiff of This: Man Hasn't Showered in 12 Years
"Smell-O-Vision" Comes to VR in the Form of "OhRoma" Gas Mask
Here's What Happens When You Add Scent to Virtual Reality
Sensor Detects How Bad Your Body Odor is
FDA Approves Topical Cloth for Excessive Armpit Sweating


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @01:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @01:21PM (#468930)

    Here’s What Happens When You Add Scent to Virtual Reality? The porn becomes really weird ...

  • (Score: 1) by Deeo Kain on Sunday February 19 2017, @02:34PM

    by Deeo Kain (5848) on Sunday February 19 2017, @02:34PM (#468941)

    This will put a whole new meaning to the saying: "This game stinks!"

  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:22PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:22PM (#468963) Journal

    The summary seems really focused on food smells, as is the Technology Review article, which starts out talking about the smell of doughnuts:

    I almost ate a foam doughnut the other day because a virtual-reality experiment had me convinced it was real.

    I was in the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford University, looking at a doughnut with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles through the lenses of a virtual-reality headset, while holding in my hand something that felt very much like the same tasty treat and sniffing an unmistakable chocolatey, doughnut-y smell.

    Fortunately, I hesitated. But sight, smell, and touch got my mouth watering.

    But is there a significant problem with this? Again from the summary:

    Or perhaps using scent along with virtual reality could help you eat a healthier diet without feeling that you're missing out. You might see and smell a juicy cheeseburger while actually chomping on a plant-based patty.

    Hasn't anyone been paying attention to recent research that suggests the mismatch between flavor/chemical signals sent by food in one's mouth vs. what actually ends up in the digestive system may actually be a CAUSE of obesity? The standard example is of course artificial sweeteners, which several studies in recent years seem to show increased cravings (and some studies suggest there are hormonal and other bodily responses that are likely causing this increased hunger), which MAY lead to overeating in some people. Your body expects the sugar intake based on the flavor of the food, and when it doesn't arrive, it signals you to eat more... thus potentially leading to worse calorie consumption than without the sweetener.

    The research is still a little unclear in the details or causality, but it wouldn't surprise me. There have also been theories suggesting flavor manipulation in processed foods can also be a trigger -- for example, if you eat a corn chip or potato chip that tastes like "meat," your brain says, "MEAT!" and your digestive system gears up to digest meat. It waits for protein, and meat (particularly when humans evolved) was typically lean protein, with not a lot of calories. So, your body sends a signal: "This is good nutritious food; eat lots of it." And then the protein doesn't arrive, so the brain sends signals saying, "Keep eating -- we didn't get the nutrition yet." Meanwhile, you're packing your stomach full of high-calorie carbs and fat from the chips.

    Anyhow -- here we have the proposal that we could have the SMELL of a cheeseburger or doughnut or whatever, and that's supposed to "help you eat a healthier diet"? What we think of as "taste" is actually mostly smell -- all sorts of volatile chemicals wafting into our noses either externally or up through your throat (which is why things "taste bland" when you have a cold). Surely some of these smells will also send chemical signals to our bodies about what to expect in terms of calorie and nutrient input (the author of TFA even admitted it "got [his] mouth watering")... and when our body doesn't receive them, it's going to get confused, maybe even triggering overeating instead of a "healthier diet."

    Granted, the studies on flavor so far have causality issues, since it may just be that fat people or people who are having weight maintenance issues also tend to start consuming foods with artificial sweeteners, etc. But there are an increasing set of studies suggesting that there are other chemical triggers going on inside our bodies after consumption that may be driving hunger and cravings -- created by the sensory experience of consuming something we didn't.

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:44PM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:44PM (#468970) Homepage

      As somebody who has dated plenty of fat girls, I have to say that the worst thing about them is that they prefer having food-scents everywhere.

      For example, skinny women generally prefer to wear floral scents or burn pine or lavender-scented candles, or perhaps have a few ceder planks scattered throughout. In contrast, fat chicks wear peach or vanilla scents as perfume and burn (no joke, this is a real-life example from a fat chick I dated) cupcake-scented candles...and the best part was that she had the cupcake-scented candle in the bathroom and lit it everytime she took shits.

      For fucks sake, I want to get horny, not hungry!

      In the meantime, when I want to enhance that experience of eating straight out of a cold can of dog-food Hormel chili, I look at pics of food much better than what I'm actually eating, does the trick nicely -- Eric Ripert's work can transform a pack of Maruichan ramen (Oriental flavor is best flavor) into haute cuisine given a good enough imagination.

      And artificial scents, I've heard, use harsh chemicals which are bad for you, and personally I can't tolerate artificial scents anyway. In my car the closest you're gonna get is Armor-All and upholstery cleaner and in my apartment "fresh linen" is the best you're gonna get. My favorite smells of all time are "gasoline," "asphalt on a rainy day," "essence of good cigar," and "beer-breath of a hot chick."

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:42PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:42PM (#468969)

    Just make the veggie burger taste and smell like the real thing.. ?