Aroma Tells a Thousand Pictures: Digital Scent Technology a New Chapter in IT Industry

Abstract

The relevance of perception of smell and the corresponding olfactory communication changed, and attitudes of cultures towards olfaction differed through the ages. Finally enlightened philosophers declared odour and the sense of smell as immeasurable, unimportant and therefore unusable for scientific purpose. But, ironically, in the last few years more and more artistic multimedia installations used odours, scented products were sold and the increasing application of aroma therapy indicate a changed attitude towards social odours. Emotionalizing scents are largely used for influencing customers’ behaviour in sales rooms and scientists are currently investigating the mystery of smell. The technological progress meanwhile allows for measuring and reproducing odours. Therefore odours are also becoming interesting for technical information transfer or communication, especially in Human-Computer Interaction. Smell seems to be an unrecognised medium and a new channel in multi-media. This paper presents various dimensions about olfaction and focuses on ongoing research and future challenges in digitizing smell and its transmission over internet.