An international team of researchers is set to present, in February 2014 and later this summer in Cambridge, a prototype technology that will allow the transmission of odors via mobile phone. The device, called oPhone, uses special postage-stamp-sized "cassettes" that can record and reproduce a multitude of odors.
Each oChip contains data for the sensation caused by each scent, with the ability to generate hundreds of olfactory signals. In the future, there is the prospect of reproducing thousands of scents from the special chip, researchers note, which when connected to a mobile phone will allow sending scents to another Ophone which will reproduce the scent.
The project was implemented by a team led by David Edwards, founder of Le Laboratoire and the ArtScience Lab , with students and engineers from Harvard and MIT. The Ophone will be unveiled and tested publicly at the official opening of the universities’ new Laboratoire Lab, where Ophone will send out the electronic equivalent of the smell of an espresso.
The project started in the spring of 2012 at Harvard, in an effort to create an «international language of communication», with the participation of Rachel Field (Harvard graduate and responsible for building the oPhone), Amy Yin (student at Harvard), and Eyal Shahar (Engineer, MIT). In the fall of 2012 the team expanded with the participation of Baptiste Viala and Laurent Milon of Studio Millimetre and the implementation began. A real technological achievement is considered the connection of the OPhone to a mobile phone via Bluetooth and the transmission of signals. Subsequently the oTrack app was developed which can play music related to the sense of smell being transmitted and can send or receive the «virtual» scent.
By connecting the oPhone to two iPhones and using the oTracks app, the user will be able to send a scent at the press of a button, explains Professor Edwards.
More about the scheduled presentations of the oPhone can be found at https://vaporcommunication.com/locations/
You can watch the video from the first presentation of the oPhone on May 14, 2013 by the project leader:
