IW2000: digiScents Progressing Nicely
Live From IW2000: Many of you may know about, or remember BetaNews reporting about the new digital scent technology being developed by DigiScents, Inc. After seeing the company earlier this year, they have made quite a bit of progress. At their booth this Fall they are offering special "scent demos" to VIP users, of which BetaNews was not, but we can say it is coming along nicely.
Tucked away in the back of the booth for all to see but none to touch, was a demo unit in a glass case. Very sleek and stylish, the unit attaches to your computer to spit out digitally created scents when you hit any "click-and-sniff" buttons on say, an e-commerce Web site. Through a partnership with RealNetworks, netizens around the globe will soon be able to exploer the scents through RealNetwork's flagship software RealPlayer.
A whole slew of branding ideas have come from this technology, including ScentStream, which will allow you to stream scents through digital multimedia presentations. Snortal.com is coming soon, which boasts to be the first scented Web site.
For a little humor, the file extension for ScentObjects (the digital representation of smells) will be .whiff and the extension for tracks of these smells will be .smellody.
Interested developers wishing to add scents to their Web site can visit deveopers.digiscents.com to become part of the ScentWare developers program.
The ScentWare WDK includes software to create scented files, dubbed ScentMixer, and software to create Smellodies, dubbed ScentTracker, as well as the ActiveX Control and Netscape plug-in. Also included are examples, scent parameters (adjustable), flash presentation support, and iSmell device emulator software.
DigiScents announced the availability of the WDK today here in New York City, as well as launching its FirstWhiff campaign to give consumers a demo of their very innovative and cool technology. There is no word yet on how much the iSmell device will retail for, though the DigiScents Web site reports an announcement will be coming soon and you will be able to buy the device and the cartridges for it at major retail stores.
For more information about DigiScents and how the product works, visit digiscents.com