TechSmith Brings Sense of Smell to Visual Communications
Posted on Friday April 1, 2011 by Betsy Weber
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As you know, we're always listening to your feedback and looking for new and innovative ways to enhance visual communications. And, a picture is worth 1000 words, a video is worth 1000×1024 words, but that's not always enough. TechSmith Labs has been hard at work on some new technology that I'm happy to announce today. TechSmith has developed a device that is able to convert smells into bits and bytes and then back again. Welcome the TechSmith Olfactory Sensory Device (OSD)!
We prototyped the OSD with our Makerbot. With the OSD, we are able to 'sniff' the air around a capture. Now, think back... some of your most powerful memories involve smell. The smell of an apple pie baking or your mother's perfume can take you back to a place in time... Studies show that smell plus images are more powerful than images alone. And, that's where the OSD comes in.
OSD is easy to use. You just plug it in any usb port (a ThunderBolt connection for iPad is under development), push the red button. The OSD simply sniffs the air, and converts the molecules into digital format that can then be easily reproduce with any OSD extractor module. Smells captured with OSD do not expire so you can easily build a catalog of smells to use with image.
You can read all the details about the OSD here.
And, better yet, be sure to check out the video below to see OSD in action.
Who would like to be the first person to have the TechSmith OSD? What smells would you add to your visual communications?
Comments (4)
Thanks for the beta invitation Betsy, I got it midnight. I did a trial run of OSD with Gmail motion. (I'm one of the (motion's) product evangelists) http://mail.google.com/mail/help/motion.html and both make a killer combo!
Posted by Ankur | April 1, 2011 12:24 PM
Posted on April 1, 2011 12:24
What a great April Fool announcement!
Posted by mark mathers | April 4, 2011 10:57 AM
Posted on April 4, 2011 10:57
My thoughts exactly but it would be a great thing.
Posted by John | April 5, 2011 9:49 AM
Posted on April 5, 2011 09:49
I sometimes give houseparties and/or webinars where I teach people about essential oils and how to use them for health. Wouldn't it be great if I could do a webinar where I didn't just describe the smell of an oil, but people could actually experience the smell themselves -- just like they could do in a home party! I know a lot of aromatherapy trainers and marketers who would line up to buy this! Maybe someday in the future it won't be just an April Fools joke.
Posted by Susan Joy Schleef | May 6, 2011 8:58 PM
Posted on May 6, 2011 20:58