Well it seems that we have unveiled our next step in virtual reality. A VR helmet that stimulates the five senses. See, hear, smell, taste and touch. Read more here.
Sounds great for educational use and I’m sure that it won’t be long before we are using these to explore other countries, sample their wares and see how the other half lives. Only selected pre prepared smells and tastes though.
I’m not so sure for games and things where we are battling aliens because they always seem to take place in sewers and some of the stuff we go near I wouldn’t want to taste or smell at all. No need to anyway. Just shoot and shoot again.
I can understand how we can create smells within a controlled environment and thus help us to taste but I suspect that the taste part will not be so easy to do and for this we are likely to be grateful. I’d hate to be in one of those systems where someone hacked in and programmed something not very nice into the smell and taste component. I would envisage this is going to take some doing to cover every taste electronically. Maybe we can have a plug in taste and smell unit for certain smells and tastes. I can see it now. ‘Please insert your Jenna Jameson smell and taste module now and press space bar to continue’. Can you imagine going into your local computer shop and asking for Jenna Jameson smell and taste add on refills. ‘Err how much for bulk?’ The mind boggles.
Personally in any VR I’ll be playing in I’ll be turning my smell and taste components off, well expect for my Jenna Jameson one anyway.