It would now be possible to send a loved one a Valentine's Day screen image of roses accompanied by the corresponding fragrance, thanks to a startling innovation to be marketed by France Telecom next year. Working with the German firm Ruetz Technologies and Isipca, a French institute specialising in cosmetics, perfumes and food aromatics, researchers at France Telecom have created technology that will enable Internet users to receive or send dozens of fragrances, if necessary matched to images.
The French state-owned telecommunications giant has devised two prototypes which it is preparing to launch and which can generate fraqrances to be propelled into the atmosphere at a simple command that can be triggered electronically. Just a couple of clicks and it may be pungent odour of new-mown grass that tickles your nostrils, or perhaps the scent of roses, honey, strawberries or coffee, or even, for those who enjoy an urban environment, the tang of diesel fumes.
''This could be done through a clamp-on device attached to the computer which contains several pre-constituted aromas which a surfer can trigger with varying degrees of intensity or duration,'' said Sylvie Courcelle-Labrousse, who with fellow researcher Jacques Messager is spearheading the project. Bureau Report