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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

 
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  • (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."

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