A Japanese professor has developed a prototype lickable TV display that may imitate meals flavours, one other step in direction of making a multi-sensory viewing expertise.
The machine, referred to as Taste the TV (TTTV), makes use of a carousel of 10 flavour canisters that spray together to create the style of a specific meals. The flavour pattern then rolls on hygienic movie over a flat TV display for the viewer to strive.
In the Covid-19 period, this type of expertise can improve the way in which individuals join and work together with the surface world, mentioned Meiji University professor Homei Miyashita.
“The goal is to make it possible for people to have the experience of something like eating at a restaurant on the other side of the world, even while staying at home,” he mentioned.
Miyashita works with a staff of about 30 college students that has produced quite a lot of flavour-related gadgets, together with a fork that makes meals style richer. He mentioned he constructed the TTTV prototype himself over the previous yr and {that a} business model would value about 100,000 yen ($875) to make.
Potential purposes embrace distance studying for sommeliers and cooks, and tasting video games and quizzes, he mentioned. Miyashita has additionally been in talks with corporations about utilizing his spray expertise for purposes like a tool that may apply a pizza or chocolate style to a slice of toasted bread.
Meiji pupil Yuki Hou, 22, demonstrated TTTV for reporters, telling the display she needed to style candy chocolate. After just a few tries, an automatic voice repeated the order and flavour jets spritzed a pattern onto a plastic sheet.
“It’s kind of like milk chocolate,” she mentioned. “It’s sweet like a chocolate sauce.”