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i-Smell Technology
INTRODUCTION
All have been attempting to master the latest technological advancement of the elusive and
rapidly changing computer industry, something with a different twist has been fermenting in the
corners of virtual reality. Have u noticed anything missing at your latest catch-up-withtechnology in service course? Listening to the music, sending mails,searching journals on-line
appears to have become common practice.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to smell the flowers
that you order online before purchasing them? Or be able to taste-smell a variety of perfumes
while surfing the web?
Being able to mechanically recreate one of the five sences, namely smell, has been in
the works for quite some time now. A company called DigiScents believes they have the goods to
revolutonize the way we think of smell. They have recently teamed up with Quest International
One of the worlds leading fragrance,flavour and food ingredients manufacturers with particular
strengths in sensory design and consumer understanding.Together, they envision a vast array of
new opportunities; mostly in the way they plan on making this new technology profitable.
iSmell is 3x 2x 5 little box-like device made by DigiScents promises to deliver
the critical and much enticipated dimension of aroma to ones latest computer
encounter.Bellenson first introduced the device as aprototype add on to an IBM ThinkPad which
will ultimately be capable of emitting 12050 different combinations of odour.
Addign fragrances to film-clips is not an entirely new idea. Back in the 50s, the
American public was introduced to such memorable highlights as Aroma-Rama andSmell -ovision . A variety of scents fille theaters and accompanied several different motion pictures
including,Behind the Great Wall. Bellenson and Smith stumbled upon the idea of designing an
odour sunthesizer after exploring avenues for improving the smell of food. They stated that
Taste is 95% aroma; your tongue can only detect sweet, sour, bitter,and salty. All other tastes are
a function of the nose.
Coding of aromas would be downloaded to computer similar to graphics images
ae audible sounds. Ultimately users will be able to creae and modify their own fragrances and
post them on the internet!(2000). Also discussed the potential for creating smell capture cameras,
which could add fragrances coding to images and sounds.

HISTORY
FOCUS
Digiscents or the digital scent revolution.
CONCEPT
Digiscents is an American company specialized in the perfumed web. There digital
fragrances software makes it possible for beauty websites,for instence. To let their visitors smell
their perfumes and beauty products.Digiscents introduced the iSmell synthesizer in October
2000. The size of a small loudspeaker, the machine is linked to a computer and recognizes
hidden instructions from a web-page or a games console to reconstruct a smell from its scentbased of 128 essential oils,and transmit it.
The founders,Joel Lloyd Bellenson (MD) and Dexter Smith (Chairman) started
from the following idea: If we can find the essence of a biological smell and build a profile, we
can digitalize and broadcast it. (From an interview with Reuters). The two had earlier founded
Double Twist, a world leader in biotechnology.

WHAT IS iSMELL ?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be able to smell the flowers that you order
online before purchasing them? Or be able to taste-smell a variety of perfumes while surfing
the web?
DigiScents,Inc, introduced its iSmell system in November 2000, which scentenables web sites, e-mails,interactive games,on-line advertising,and many more. The iSmell is a
personal synthesizer that emits a broad range of fragrances.
ISmell

Digital

Scent

Technology

is

complete

solution

for

the

digitization,broadcast and synthesis of smells to accompany all forms of media! ISmell is a plugin computer accessory that contains a basic palette of scented oils from which a bouquet of
different smells can be created.
Just as we can download digitized music and play it through speakers attached to
a computer,we should soon be able to acquire online scent data that a little gadget can play back
as smells. Ismell device can be linked via serial cable,sits a black plastic box 3 inches tall,2
inches wide and 5 inches deep,about the size of an electric pencil sharpener. Sometimes inside it
a little fan is attached that starts whirring,drawing in air at the back and blowing it over tiny cials
of oils that are being heated selectively in response to signals from the computer. The air picks
up the oily fragrances and wafts it out through a 2 inch vent.Digiscent has proposed four models
of iSmell device among them one is slightly smaller than telephone and others are of fin-shaped.
Now, when shopping online,you may soon simply click on a perfume and smell it
through your computer! Or you may be able to send an email to your friend woth the smell of
roses or chocolate! Or, how would you like to play video games and smell the environment you
are playing in or watch a movie that gives you the scent of an autumn bonfire!
So,what will iSmell technology achieve? It will make advertising more engaging
and memorable.

How Does it Work?

The iSmell device was incorporated in February 2000 by DigiScents founders, Joel Lloyd
Bellenson and Dexster Smilth. DigiScents developed the iSmell scent "player" and scent
cartridge. The cartridge, modeled after a print cartridge, is made up of scent creating materials
similar to those used in the food and cosmetic industry. The iSmell device, which is pictured
above, attaches to your computer and "plays" small amounts of scent.
Here's how the overall program works:
* DigiScents indexes thousands of smells based on their chemical structure and their place on the
scent spectrum
* Each scent is then coded and digitized into a small file.
* The digital file is embedded in Web content or email.
* A user requests or triggers the file by clicking a mouse or opening an email.
* A small amount of the aroma is emitted by the device in the direct vicinity of the user.
The iSmell cartridge contains 128 primary odors. When these 128 odors are mixed, thousands of
other scents are created. The iSmell device can be turned off at any time and users can block any
unwork.

BROADCASTING OF SMELL

DigitizedScent.
A scene is indexed along two parameters, its chemical makeup and its place in the
scentspectrum,and then digitized into a small file.

Broadcast.
The digital file is scent, attached to enhanced web content.

Synthesize.

DigiScents iSmell, which connects to the users computer like a set of speakers, synthesis the
smell from a palette of primary odours, following the guidelines of the digital file.
iSmell technology turns smell into digital codes that can be stored on laser discs or as
computer files, and it can even be emailed. It reads the digital scent file, creates a smell from a
palette of 128 chemicals stored in a catridge, which wafts into the air with a small fan.

The complete product:

DigiScents is developing a complete solution for scent-enabling the Internet and all forms of
digital media, including:
iSmell Personal Scent Synthesizer: A computer peripheral device which recreates
Scent Objects by mixing and releasing one or more of 128 scents. The device includes
replaceable cartridges similar to those used in color printers.

ScentPalette Cartridges:
Consider cartridges contained inside the iSmell device. The cartridges are filled
with over one hundred different fragrant materials that are emitted alone or incombination. In
addition to the general purpose of Scent Palette there is a possibility of creating industry Specific
cartridges for every thing from fragrances and food to games and movies.

WHAT IS ScentWare AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

Sentware is a combination of SoftWare and Hardware.

There are two types of software. One allows you to Design your own custom fragrances, and
the other allows you to receive the codes for a custom scent and have them activate a spray
device so you can smell it.
The design software is often as simple as a web page with pictures of familiar
scents (apple pie, popcorn, fresh rain, flowers ) that you can drag with your mouse into a
virtual beaker and mix. The combinations you choose can be saved as a custom fragrance, which
gets stored as codes to be passed to a spray device.
The spray device is a piece of hardware that can be plugged into one of the serial ports
of your computer, the way a printer plugs in. This device has a disposable carteidge with a

number of chambers inside, each containing a chemical compound that can be mixed with others
to match the custom scent youve created.

iSMELL A SNORTAL ON THE WEB

Smith said the pair got the idea of wiring the Internet for smell
during a vacation in Miami's vibrant South Beach. ``We were overwhelmed by the perfumes that
people were wearing, all the sensory input,'' Smith said. ``We thought: This is a biological
phenomenon, this is in our domain. We should be able to understand this and build a company
out of it.'' They quickly got building and soon the Oakland, California-based .Digi Scents had the
concept down. First, there is the ``iSmell,'' a plug-in computer accessory that will contain a basic
palette of scented oils from which a bouquet of different smells can be created.
Functioning like the MP3 players that download music from the
Internet, the iSmell will take its orders from DigiScent's .''ScentStream'' software, which will
translate online digital cues for different smells into specific orders for the portable perfume
factory.To ensure odor authenticity, DigiScent has created a ``Scent
Registry,'' a digital index of thousands of scents that the company will license to developers to
integrate into games, Web sites, advertisements, movies and music.To round it out, the company
plans to create a``Snortal'' on the Web to give people a chance to sniff for themselves.
There is real science behind all this. Bellenson, who once ran a
Stanford University lab specializing in DNA synthesis, has drawn up models for the way odor
molecules bind with the some 10 million odor-detecting neurons on a human nose, a step toward
establishing the Scent Registry that will underpin the concept. DigiScent's founders hope that by
licensing their scent spectrum, they will create a world of smells for the Internet generation -perfumes you can smell online, computer games with the whiff of the jungle or the tang of jet
fuel, movies that give audiences the scents of an autumn bonfire.`The sense of smell is closely
tied to memory and emotion, making scent a powerful way to reinforce ideas,'' Bellenson said.
``If a picture is worth a thousand words, a scent is worth a thousand
pictures.''

Smell-o-Vision!

"Smell-o-vision?" Just what are we talking about here? In the past century we became used to the
transmission of sights and sounds through the airwaves and via the Internet. In essence,
"transmission" of visual and auditory information relies on the electronic coding of waves of
electromagnetic energy (light waves) or of waves of vibrations in a medium (sound waves), the
sending of this coded information, the decoding of this information in a receiver (radio,
television, computer, etc.), and the creation of new light or sound waves based on this
information. But scents? Odors? Smell and taste are the chemical senses. How do we transmit
chemicals via the Internet? Although the concept sending digitized scents via the Internet from
computer to computer may have seemed bizarre a few years ago, a number of companies are
creating hardware and software that will enable it (Biersdorfer, 2000; Poniewozik, 2000).

Where is iSmell Used ?

According to Brian Nelson at DigiScents, "What kind of smells can be emitted by the iSmell
device? Just about anything you can imagine."
There are many applications for digital scent technology such as:
1. send scented email
2. watch scented DVD's
3. play scented video games

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4. sample a perfume from a beauty product's website

5. smell the assortment of freshly brewed coffees for sale in their online store .

Why Would You Want to Do This?

There are four basic types of applications that scentware seems a logic fit for at the moment.
1. Marketing
2. Entertainment
3. Education
4. Medical

Multisensory Marketing:
Death to Banner Ads - Let the Nose Lead the WayCommerce tends to lead development, which
is why some of the bigger scentware developers, like TriSenx, are partnering with companies
that just plain smell. Perfume manufactures are an obvious fit. They would be able to benefit
from doing market research across the net, emailing you samples of some new fragrance they
might be trying out to see how you like it, and using your feedback to shape the final product.
And the heck with scratch-and-sniff cards in your favorite magazine. Now youll smell their
latest and greatest when arrive at your favorite womens website or online boutique.
Other companies whove taken the bait besides the cosmetics, fragrance, and health and
industries? - restaurants and specialty food shops who know the smell of pizza wafting out of
your PC, or may be moms chocolate chip cookies, will just be too much too resist. It adds a
new dimension to the point-of-sale marketing angle. Youre visiting a website that is known to
attract a large number of people from a particular demographics. The heck with banner
advertising when the marketer has a better way to get you hooked on what theyre hocking.

Entertainment

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E-mail Alive with smell

Of all the uses for scentware, this one scares be most the ability to send emails with smells
anybody can design. Sure, itll add a fun new dimension to Valentines Day when you can send
an electronic postcard with nice music and a dozen roses that smell real, but can you imagine the
legions of alternatives your friends ( and others ) will opt for? Dirty sneakers, wet dogs
May be worse assaults to your delicate sensibilities will be within the reach of email artists and
spammers alike.
There are, however, more creative uses of scentware in bringing to life the stories
we tell through more traditional mediums. Whos looking at smell-o-vision now? Movie theatres
who want to top surround-sound are now looking at mounting surround-smell devices on theatre
chairs. This might be great if youre watching some nice, homey flick full of gardens and cherry
pie, but imagine watching one of tTom Greens latest romps, complete to the way thatll have
you out of your chair.
Of course there are also the movies you bring home. Will your next DVD come
complete with a soundtrack AND smelltrack?

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For authors and music composers the idea of adding taste and smell to their creative
conjuring seems irresistible. Words can be powerful stimulators of imagined tastes and smells,
but the ability to bring those exact things to life may make the electronic distribution of
storytelling an even more tempting channel. Perhaps a glimpse of the evolution of mega
bookstores and internet cafes?
Education
Tapping Into Another Information Channel You neede only to walk into a bakery or popcornfilled theatre to realize the powerful ability of smell to invoke memory.
Its this power that makes the addition of scent to the classroom experience such
an interesting new ally. I dont know about you, but reading about Shakespeare or Napoleon out
of a textbook was rarely inspiring. Had you given me the chance to interact with history
through the sites, sounds tastes and smells of that time, youd probably have had me hooked.
Virtual field trips have become an invaluable tool for bringing important
experience into the classroom where time or geography may otherwise prevent them. The
addition of Smell is acknowledge as a tool that enhances the memory of that experience, and
amount of knowledge that is retained because of it.
Medical
A new Tool for Catching Degenerative Neurological Diseases Early
Aromatherapy will perhaps be one of the big drivers of home computer scentware sales. In
addition to ergonomically correct keyboards and mice, music while we work, and even
computer-based workouts to help you keep fit, you can now add smell to your list of tools for
increasing personal wellbeing. The benefits of aromatherapy go beyond personal pleasure. Its
valued within

Physical Aspects of Smell

jOlfactory displays should rely on users distinguishing different smells not strength and duration
of smells. Olfactory displays must take into account potential allergy and nausea reactions. Smell
is generally appropriate for slow moving data.
Due to the advancement in the computer technology the need of virtual technology is increasing.
The computer is able to sense the touch vision and sight, now we introduce digital smell which

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evaluates the gases. Iscent digital scent technology is new software by which we can send scent
messages through web. By using this technology we can create and modify fragrances and send
them through emails or we can post on the social networking sites. In this paper we will see how
digital smell device is designed and the advantages of using digital smell.
Before we describe the possibilities of olfactory displays, we should take a glance at the
physiological aspects of smell. How does the nose work and what is its function? Naturally we
can breath, smell and additionally taste with our nose. First of all we are interested in the
anatomy of the nose.
Odor consists of many different molecules, for e.g. the aroma of coffee is made up of 20 various
molecules. Nonetheless our nose perceives only 15 odors which is enough to identify the smell
as coffee.
At first the odor molecules reach the olfactory mucosa. The receptors for the molecules are
placed at the olfactory hairs. When the molecules reach the receptors, an electric impulse is sent
directly to the brain to the olfactory bulb. Then the information gets to the olfactory glomeruli, a
part of the olfactory bulb. The glomeruli is able to associate the information to the intensity. The
olfactory bulb consequently processes the odor and can send the impulse to the olfactory brain.
We notice that we have a direct connection between our sense of smelling and our brain. Those
scent impulses reach the area of our brain that handles emotions and memories. That explains the
link between smelling and being reminded of something.
We percept smell very individually. Every human perceive a difference between a pleasant and
unpleasant odor. Humans are not capable to distinguish odors in terms of intensity. Roughly we
can only distinguish between three concentrations of some odor whereas we should actually be
able to differentiate1000types of odors. Another problem for olfactory display is the fast
acclimatization of humans to scents.
What makes it even more difficult to construct olfactory display is that a set of primary odors has
not really been found. There was an attempt to define seven such of primary odors but had to be
extended to 100 odors. For vision, three base colors are sufficient to display any color.
Unfortunately this cannot be applied to olfaction as our nose has thousands of receptors and apart

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from that the odors are not orthogonal. That means you will not necessarily get a new one by
mixing two odors. Due to these big problems there is still research in examining our scent.

Limitations Of This Technology

The obvious one is the price. Most home computer users wont be willing to pay the $250-500+
price tag for the luxury of scratch-and-sniff websites. Some diehard game fans may find the
olfactory add-on a worthwhile boost to their multimedia experience, but chances are this
technology will find its first strong market in small kiosks and other speciality shops.
While many fragrance mannufacturess will find the ability to use scentware for both
market research and the generation of new sales, most of the ScentWare application available
today operate at a very simple level and arent capable of reproducing the very complex protein
level of molecule modeling that commercial fragrances require. Speciality food marketers will
face the same problem . While pizza, popcorn and apple pie are already stock smells in a number
of scentware collections, exact replicas of some of the more complex branded foods that big
distributors want to entice you with just wont be possible yet. While a few years old, the
technology is still immature, and will require a committed partners and reasonable investment to
customize the results in a way thats suitable for companies whose smell is their branding.

THE FUTURE OF DIGISCENTS

When DigiScents debuted in November 2000, the idea had its
Skeptics. Analysts at that time called scent more of a novelty than anything
Else-scent was the least important sense in the scheme of game

development.

During 2000, DigiScents could not find more venture capital fundingTo move
beyond developing prototypes. Although the iSmell device had Failed, it had proved successful
during the time of its peak. DiigScents
Distributed nearly 5,000 software developer kits.
At the end of the year 2000, DigiScents had launched their SnortalOn the Internet
(sniff +portal)to allow surfers to discuss, learn ,smell ,create and register perfumes and
smells ,and even send perfumed emailMessages

According

to

Reuters, Americans

has

experience the first perfumedAdvertising campaigns and Internet sites, while the first scent-

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speakers will Be available from early 2001.It remains to be seen at what retail price.
DigiScents main focus was combining biotechnology, informatics, and sensory research to
create a digital platform that will revolutionize the world.

THE PRESENT
Digiscents were awarded the best technology prize durint the Retail Vision 2001 ceremony,
for the past ten years one of the major honour in the IT retailers industry.
2,500 developers have already applied for the ScentWare Developers Kit which was
Launched in March 2000 And is used to create Scented games and multimedia
applications.Wondering what will be the next product? How about tasting things online maybe!.

About Technology
Until now online communication involved only two of our senses, sense of hearing and sense of
sight. Soon it will involve the third, the sense of smell. A new technology is being developed to
appeal to our sense of smell. Bringing alive our experience, technology now targets on the sense
of smell. Using Electronic-nose we can sense a smell and with a technology called Digital scent
technology it is possible to sense, transmit and receive smell through internet, like smelling a
perfume online before buying them, sent scented E-cards through scent enabled websites, and to
experience the burning smell of rubber in your favorite TV games etc.
If this technology gains mass appeal no one can stop it from entering into virtual world. Just
imagine you are able to smell things using a device connected to your computer. With Digital
scent technology this can be made a reality. There is complete software and hardware solution
for scenting digital media and user.

EVOLUTION
As we know that many scientists have started for the virtual reality from the last 5 to 6 years. As
a virtual reality they have got a full concept as virtual theater. These theaters consist of an
electronic hand gloves, digital smell, multipoint surround sound system, movement controllable
seats, 3d goggles. From this idea the multipoint surround sound system, 3d goggles, movement
controllable seats were completed. Now for the user to fill more realistic effects of movies they

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were introducing the very new facility of digital smell in movies or in games. For example if we
are watching a movie and we see burning of tier then we will fill that smell in theater or pc or
television. The basic idea for this was given by the perfume making companies for the
advertisements of their perfumes.
Founders
Founders Dexster Smith and Joel Lloyd Bellenson, experts in bioinformatics and genomics,
started from the following idea: If we can find the essence of a biological smell and build a
profile, we can digitalize and broadcast it. They came up with the idea for the company while
they were in South Beach. Using their scientific knowledge, they indexed and analyzed natural
smells said to be common to South Beach such as flowers, salt water, and suntan lotion.

CONCLUSION
A Scent has a strange power over human beings. It can create a mood, such as foreshadowing or
abbiance. It can intensify emotions such as fear or love. It can also give the sensation of virtual
reality and supension of disbelief.
The Sence of smell is closely tied to memory and emotion, making scent a powerful
way to reinforce ideas.
A smell synthesizer is a device which can generate gases by using a computer. In the
market different types of smell synthesizers are available which are manufactured by dig scents

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company. Ismell is peripheral device which generates fragrances is connected to a computer by

using a serial USB. It will be in the size of a speaker which uses cartridges to generate vapor
BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] symbolic Olfactory Display by - Joseph jofish kaye
Thesis Proposal for the degree of master of science
At the massaccusetts institute of technology
Winter 2000
[2] Towards an odor communication system. By- D.Harel,L. Carmel
Department of computer science and applied Mathematics.
[3] www.digiscents.com
[4] www.trisenx.com
[5]

www.aromajet.com

[6]

www.sentware.com