How soon will be possible to turn smells into electronic signals?

[inf1nity]

It is possible to turn the sensation of sight into electronic signals(using cameras) which can then be stored, shared and distributed. Same goes for the sense of sound(using audio recorders)

However it has not been possible(AFAIK) to do the same with the sensation of smell. It would be awesome if you could "record" the smell of a flower and share it with your friends via email.


Has any progress been made in this direction?

 

[MongGrel]

Perfume?

Most things food oriented use it a bit as smell effects taste, I've started vaping recently and that figures in a lot.

I seem to remeber awhile back they were developing some type of a movie system that would release smells into the air of the theater while the movie was playing.

Electronically mailing a smell seems like it would be hard to do, unless you have something like say a printer or something similar to a 3d Printer with various E-Juice type of things that would attempt to recreate it I would think.

 

[MongGrel]

Unless you have something that can do complete molecular recombination seems it might be a bit hard, but you might have a complete Star Trek transporter almost at that point.

An interesting concept if you think about it, but not sure the hardware is really developed for it like monitors and speakers etc have been for years, not too many people running around relying on their noses mainly for day to day interaction with their environment.

 

[Qwertilot]

Direct brain stimulation would be the 'obvious' route, in which case a while yet

 

[MongGrel]

Direct brain stimulation would be the 'obvious' route, in which case a while yet

That would be more likely, yeah.

The scarey part is once you get to the point of having that possible, people hacking your brain in other ways directly for other reasons would start to factor in.

 

[dkozloski]

You could let one explosive gassy fart and send it to everybody on your contact list. Teenage boys would have a blast with this one.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

This was done years ago. I read about it in Wired.

*googles*

Found it.

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

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_scent_technology

Personally, I think it's a product looking for a market that doesn't exist. I mean, do you really... well... wait... okay, no, this could have applications in porn as well as cooking shows. But other than that? Meh.

 

[sandorski]

Not sure if want. In some circumstances it would be cool, but not all circumstances.

 

[irishScott]

The issue is the insanely complex chemistry involved.

To reproduce a sight, we have devices that accurately reproduce the light that defines said sight. To reproduce a sound, we have devices that accurately reproduce the sound waves that define said sound. To reproduce a smell, we'd need devices capable of both analyzing and re-creating any possible chemistry that could be used to produce a scent. Pictures and sound waves are trivial challenges by comparison.

 

[DrPizza]

Sight, sound = waves. Smell = complex chemical interactions.

 

[cbrunny]

Direct brain stimulation would be the 'obvious' route, in which case a while yet

This guy did it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNdM9JhTPJw

well... ok.. not "electronically".....

 

[name99]

It is possible to turn the sensation of sight into electronic signals(using cameras) which can then be stored, shared and distributed. Same goes for the sense of sound(using audio recorders)

However it has not been possible(AFAIK) to do the same with the sensation of smell. It would be awesome if you could "record" the smell of a flower and share it with your friends via email.


Has any progress been made in this direction?

The basic problem is that it's not yet really understood what determines a smell, in the way that we know how the frequency of light determines a color, or the shape of an audio waveform determines the sound. There are molecules that appear to be very different which smell the same, and molecules which are very similar but smell very different.
Until this is resolved, the best you could do is use some sort of spectroscopy to establish the mix of molecules at a point, then create a matching mix based on that information.

There are theories about how smells work, for example that the salient characteristic is not the shape of the molecule, or its chemical properties, but its spectrum of eigenfrequencies. However even this theory has problems with the fact that enantiomers can have very different smells.

 

[inf1nity]

Thanks for the informative replies all.

Perfume?

Perfume isn't an electronic signal.

 

[Abwx]

Perfume isn't an electronic signal.

Well, it is actualy an electric signal (the term electronic relate to the technology not to the principle actualy, as it use the properties of the negative charge carrier, ie , the electron) that is generated when we smell things since chemical reactions are electromagnetic phenomenons , it s just that these are electrical macro phenomenons involving a lot of molecules/matter.

 

[antihelten]

Well, it is actualy an electric signal (the term electronic relate to the technology not to the principle actualy, as it use the properties of the negative charge carrier, ie , the electron) that is generated when we smell things since chemical reactions are electromagnetic phenomenons , it s just that these are electrical macro phenomenons involving a lot of molecules/matter.

This is actually wrong, as it's mainly the exact opposite that happens, with a positive charge carrier (ussually calcium or sodium) not a negative charge carrier being responsible.

Anyway to answer the OP, there is really no major technical challenge to do this, merrily an economical one.

First of all you would need to register the smell, this could quite easily be achieved by running the odor molecules that make up the smell through your machine of choice (e.g. a HPLC or GC-MS or similar), then you will have a fairly accurate idea of the exact makeup of the smell (this being your electrical signal).
The next step is to turn this back into smell. Most odor molecules are fairly simple small molecules, which can be acquired quite cheaply. So on a case by case basis it is quite easy to reproduce a smell. The problem (this is where the economy comes in) is building some kind of system that can reproduce any relevant smell on command, since such a machine would have to contain a wide range of chemical compounds, and would presumably also have to be cheap enough to be relevant for your average consumer (i.e. your example of mailing a smell to your friends).

 

[Abwx]

This is actually wrong, as it's mainly the exact opposite that happens, with a positive charge carrier (ussually calcium or sodium) not a negative charge carrier being responsible.

Anyway to answer the OP, there is really no major technical challenge to do this, merrily an economical one.

First of all you would need to register the smell, this could quite easily be achieved by running the odor molecules that make up the smell through your machine of choice (e.g. a HPLC or GC-MS or similar), then you will have a fairly accurate idea of the exact makeup of the smell (this being your electrical signal).
The next step is to turn this back into smell. Most odor molecules are fairly simple small molecules, which can be acquired quite cheaply. So on a case by case basis it is quite easy to reproduce a smell. The problem (this is where the economy comes in) is building some kind of system that can reproduce any relevant smell on command, since such a machine would have to contain a wide range of chemical compounds, and would presumably also have to be cheap enough to be relevant for your average consumer (i.e. your example of mailing a smell to your friends).

I said that that electronics, our computers, is relying to negative charge carriers, the electrons,i did not say that biological chemical reactions use the negative charge carrier, the term macro i used for the chemical reaction should had given you a hint about the adequacy of my thoughts...

Agree more or less on the rest of your post.

 

[antihelten]

I said that that electronics, our computers, is relying to negative charge carriers, the electrons,i did not say that biological chemical reactions use the negative charge carrier, the term macro i used for the chemical reaction should had given you a hint about the adequacy of my thoughts...

Agree more or less on the rest of your post.

I'm sorry, I see now that I misread the part about electric/electronic, my bad.

 

[Abwx]

I'm sorry, I see now that I misread the part about electric/electronic, my bad.

Anyway i appreciate your understanding of the electro biological reactions,
not often that i read a post that is logicaly and well thought when explaining thoses matters.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Sight, sound = waves. Smell = complex chemical interactions.

It still is possible to store and send the information of the chemical structure. But in order to turn it back to a smell you'd need all the required chemicals at the receiving end too. And would you really want to combine chemicals based on what someone sent you unless you knew exactly what it was? Nasty smells are one thing, but you could in theory also send toxic or explosive gasses.

 

[Rakehellion]

That would be more likely, yeah.

The scarey part is once you get to the point of having that possible, people hacking your brain in other ways directly for other reasons would start to factor in.

That was the plot of Batman Forever.

You could let one explosive gassy fart and send it to everybody on your contact list. Teenage boys would have a blast with this one.

2 girls, 1 cup in 4D.

But yeah, what's the olfactory equivalent of looking away? This technology has plenty of potential for abuse and would be outlawed pretty quickly.

 

[inachu]

It will be easy to do once we do a live video mapping of the brain as the person smells an object.

Then not only will we be able to know the location but also what the signal of the smell looks like in the video.

Then we could with the proper recording then have a playback and playback back to the person and have them experience that smell all over again without the smell really being there at all.

But then if we are able to reproduce the smell then are we actually at some quantum level creating an actual object inside the person nasal cavity?

It would be like the nasal cavity is the transporter room on the Enterprise.

 

[massmedia]

a "smell receptor" in your nose is really just a cell that has a particular "grabber" (receptor molecule) to which somewhat-specific tiny-bits will bind to.

A smell is just the brain's interpertation of the various signals coming from receptors in the nose. A particular smell will be triggered by a particular combination of "tiny-floating-bits" that bind to their appropriately shaped receptor molecules.

to turn that into computer code all you'd need to do is find a way to take a silicone chip that neurons would interface with, cut out the in-tact nasal receptor surface area from a poor animal (unethical) and then slap the two together and observe the signal data when exposing that system to various smells (tiny-floating-bits).

The real challenge would be to create an artificial non-biological "smell" receptor system capable of selectively binding to those tiny particles of stuff (that when combined create the impression of a smell after signal processing in the brain).

Step 1 would be to create the artificial receptors.
Probably easier to create an artificial biological system on a chip.

 

[Howard]

Given that we can already do molecular analysis (for the most part), it can be done now. There's just no reason to. All you need is a 1x[verylargenumber] matrix where you store the concentration of xyz molecule.

 

[sm625]

Obviously it will be much easier to "read" odors then to "write" them. You have to design a circuit with two poles, a transmitter and a receiver. You vent the air between the two poles. You transmit a blend of various frequencies, and then analyze the signal at the receiver. By measuring the attenuation of each frequency relative to the other frequencies, you can get a good sense of the types of molecules that are passing through, ie you read their signature. It would only cost a few dollars to mass produce such a circuit, on a scale of say 10 million units. But the initial investment would be in the many tens of millions. There just isnt the kind of demand out there to justify such an investment. Especially since we're talking about a rather high powered device, not something that could actually be integrated into a phone. To shrink it down to something that would fit in a phone, you'd need maybe a $1-5 billion investment. Who really wants a smell app that bad?

Anyway, once we have the smell app in place, then it will be a bit more feasible to generate the smells. But still I would estimate at least one order of magnitude more in cost. So, that's roughly $50 billion to make a smartphone that generates basic odors.