Tasty TV: Japanese professor creates a screen that is able to transmit flavors
Lick your monitor? Could be quite so in some near future!
Japanese professor at Meiji University Homei Miyashita has developed a prototype TV screen that can mimic tastes.
The device is called Taste the TV (TTTV). It uses 10 flavour canisters and combines them to create the taste of a particular food. The sample of the fragrance then appears on the hygienic film of the TV screen so that the viewer can try it. This development is called yet another step towards creating multi-sensory content viewing.
“The goal is to give people a chance to try something like eating at a restaurant on the other side of the world, even while staying at home,” Miyashita says.
Miyashita works with a team of about 30 students who have created many other flavoring devices, including a fork that makes the taste of food richer. As per Miyashita, he built the TTTV prototype himself in the last year and that the commercial version would cost about 100,000 yen ($875).
The scientist is convinced that in the future its development can be used in, for distance, learning of sommelier and chefs, as well as games and quizzes.
Miyashita also hopes to create a platform where users can download and enjoy different tastes same as we can do with music now.
Isn't it too pricy?
As for now – surely, that’s not a product for a wide audience. But it’s always like that with the innovative products. The price to produce a single cultured meat burger dropped over 15,000 times in just 8 years, for instance. And well, won’t it be cool one day to remotely sample a food before ordering a delivery – in a one simple lick?
Source: Reuters. Wanna more science news? Look here.
