How does a computer smell?

The idea of a computer controlled smell output display has been around for nearly 50 years but it is only recently that the technology has become more economically viable and commercially available, however it is still being developed.
Humans have difficulty is ascertaining the quantity of a smell but are very good at identifying qualities and differences in smells. There are many different methods for olfactory display. There is an airbrush-like system that uses compressed air to pick up liquid particles of scent and emit them. There are various systems that use heat to increase the evaporation of a scented oil or wax. It is also possible to use a mechanical scratch and sniff type system. Each system has its faults but different systems have optimal applications.
In the present nearly all multimedia applications have two main components, Audio and Visual stimuli. The aim of most applications is to immerse the user into the created world. Smell used properly could be a very powerful tool in recreating a world. Smell can bring someone straight backs to a childhood memory, if this were used effectively in a horror film for example; the viewer would be very easily scared. Issuing the effect that many contemporary horror films have recently been trying to emote. However there are possible problems with immersing a user too much into a computer simulated world. Although the debate between computer games manufactures and doting parents still rages on. Whether violent games breed violent people or violent people are attracted to violent games. If the former were true, creating a more immersive world through smell would mean that it would become difficult to separate game from reality. Possibly becoming a sociological issue.
The development of this technology could affect different parts of the art world as well. The film, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, uses very clever camera, editing and CGI effects to portray smell on screen. If the olfactory display technology were widely accepted and used by filmmakers, large parts of the film would be greatly enhanced. Although the concept has been around for a long time, the execution is now near completion and will hopefully be available and affordable soon.

http://www.hitl.whttp://www.hitl.washington.edu/people/tfurness/courses/inde543/reports/3doc/ashington.edu/people/tfurness/courses/inde543/reports/3doc/

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.11/digiscent.html

http://digiscents.com/blog/

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2001/03/42417

http://www.microscent.net/

http://silvia.mn.ee.titech.ac.jp/MNL_display.htm

http://silvia.mn.ee.titech.ac.jp/research/Olfactory-Display-to-blend-32component-odors.htm

Computer-Controlled Smell Output
Perfumer & Flavorist, November/December 2004

More nonsense

Reading over what he has previously written, the Pilot starts to question his own sanity. However in thinking this he proves to himself that he is actually sane, since only sane people question their own sanity, but since this was the first time he thought this he must have been insane before. What was the cure? What happened to make him question his own sanity? Can he make money out of this? All these questions start racing through his head like tiny figures on micro scooters made from some kind of frozen liquid. He then starts to ponder the definition of sanity:

sanity |ˈsanitē|
noun
the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health : I began to doubt my own sanity.
• reasonable and rational behavior.

If normal is an abstract concept and based on the largest proportion of a population of a society then, if the society is completely full of insane people and only one sane person, becomes insane, by definition. But if it were separate would that one sane person by definition be insane compared to the sane people in his separate society. So if you were to separate a mental institution from mainland society and made it a small freestanding society on its own, the definition of insane would be switched. For example it has 50 patients and 5 doctors/nurses/orderlys, the normal is to be our version of insane, thus insanity become our version of normal.
I think the point I have been trying to make is that all definitions and terms are relative and Them can entirely distort them to fit the social groupings that they want. The Pilot then again revaluates his mental health, his brow wrinkles and he sees a few out of focus hairs cloud the top of his vision as he looks up and to the left of his field of view. He purses his lips and moves them to the left side of his face at the same time he closes his left eye by a few millimeters. He closes his fists and inhales slowly while turning his head roughly 47 degrees to the left. The window now comes into focus, being removed from the peripheries of his vision. The area outside of the window de-blurs itself and on the roof of the house opposite a crow becomes the nucleus of his attention. This creature although completely illuminated by the vast and hazed light source from up above, remains silhouetted looking like a cut out. As it turns its head though 90 degrees and the light flashes across its eyes giving it a momentary entrance into visual three dimensional space. Its leaves the space and removes itself, becoming two dimensional again, and there it stands motionless. The Pilot is reminded of Edgar Allen Poe’s spectacular poem about the personification of death in the almost insignificant from of a black bird. “Maybe this is my personification of death.” The Pilots chest tightens and he realizes that his buttocks have slowly been loosing feeling. Subconsciously he tries to change the subject. His fingernails come into his vision… dirty… dirty.

Daily Blitherings

A feeling of dread starts to set in as the realization of the hangover begins to vibrate through the pilot’s brain. He is sitting here at his laptop trying to get as many thoughts down onto digital paper as possible. He does this due to the fear of his brain healing for the last few nights of debaucherous behavior and the memory being lost into the caverns. He realizes that his left foot is slowly becoming numb, perhaps an inverted heart attack? Fuck it, he might die and even that would not be a tragedy because he would not be aware of it, this calmness instilled on him is short-lived as he contemplates an after life. Oh god, God? If you’re there, save me from this heart attack! His heart beats quicker as he sits on the chair covered in clothes at his graying Laptop, he realizes that he is writing about himself in entirely the third person, “how self indulgent” he mumbles to himself, in a voice which gives off a slight taste of copper. He sniffs, scratches a piece of crusty gold coloured excretion from his eye looks out of the window and breathes in through his right nostril, the other one is blocked. A sharp pain shoots up his lower left back and the link is made back to the heart attack. Maybe it’s like the warning of a tsunami, the calm before the storm, this numbness and pain before death as the tide recedes along the sand. The pilot starts to wonder what another sane human being reading his passage would think of it and whether there was necessarily any point of specifying that a human being would be reading the letters. “As opposed to what, a salmon coloured flamingo?” he says to himself, that coppery taste returning. He thinks of Alice in wonderland, then the annoyingly punned Alice in Sunderland, a satirical adaptation that he only read half a page then got bored, this aggravates him and he realized that he needs to take a shit.
The bathroom door needs a little extra nudge because a slightly moist towel is on the other side of it, the pilot realizes how much he hates the word moist, he repeats it to himself a few times to get that feeling of total distain back again. Moist. The door opens with a grinding sound. He pulls the disgusting towel from under the door, the friction with the carpet makes that grinding sound again, but a higher pitch due to the panels on the door vibrating more from the upward movement of the towel. The pilot closes the door, drops his trousers, spreads and squeezes, realizing that sitting should be somewhere in that list but decides to leave it out purely for comic effect. Wipes, washes hands and goes back to his computer, again, pulling up the actual trousers is left out for comic effect. He starts typing, his hands take a couple of seconds to dry, but when they are dry they are smooth but slightly rough. He scratches his eyebrow with his left hand; it makes the sound of leaves blowing in his head. He reads back over what he has written and wonders if what he had written had been a work of fiction, whether he would make a main protagonist, a subsidiary supporting character or even a non-existent extra. Do they have extras in books? Or if the book is based entirely on reality how come there are no end credits? He then realizes that end credits would be pointless because each actor or actress or just actor according to the politically correct, world be part of the writer and creator’s mind and personality. The politically correctness confused him. It seemed that they, they being them, Them being non existent, wanted there to be no discrimination between men or women, well, Them must be bi-sexual, which is another form of greediness, and greediness is one of the main driving factors of the average human, so people in general will now be referred to as Them.

Daily Blitherings

What do you want to get out of the course in addition to passing?

In addition to passing I want to gain a greater understanding of the audio-visual and commerical world in multimedia. From what I have been told, the course offers many doorways into this selected industry, I plan on making contacts who will hopfully help me in my furtue carreer in the media indutry, apart from this I want to meet people of similar interests. I also want to develop my current draftmanship abilitys as much as possible and take advantage of the environment and facilitys provided.

e*dat