I couldn't gather whether the o-phone detected the smells, coded them and then sent them to the receiving device or did people on the sending side program (manually) what the receiving side would get? Any idea? cW, I think you would enjoy this read.the reasoning behind this is that it takes humans about three to four seconds after exposure to detect a scent, and about ten seconds after that to reach saturation, or olfactory fatigue — the point at which the epithelium is overwhelmed enough to be temporarily unable to distinguish new aroma molecules.
-I've experienced olfactory fatigue before, it's a bummer that we cannot hang in there longer at things like wine tastings, flower shops, bakeries etc.
The way I read it, the scent is programmed from a set of pre-packaged chemicals. The smell you receive is an approximation, or at least as close as someone could make given what I'm sure is a limited palate of base scents. It's all an interesting idea, but I'm having a difficult time imagining something other than pure novelty that this could be used for, as long as the smell is simply a replica.
That's my biggest problem with the thing. It's a replica of a smell. This kind of ruins the whole concept to me. At first I was really interested, but once you realize that they haven't actually transmitted the smell itself...rather just a guesstimation at what it might smell like...it becomes (as you said) a novelty item.