Wednesday 28 February 2007

Can't you just SMELL the ethnography?

This makes me SO excited! I've often wanted a kind of scratch-and-sniff ethnography. If we can use film/photos/sound recordings in ethnographic representation, then why not use smell as well? My new goal in life: write the first web-based monograph that uses smell along with video and audio-- though I might have to wait a decade...


___________________________________________
From the BBC website:
Wednesday, 28 February 2007, 11:57 GMT

'Fragrant future beckons for web'

Many South Koreans are serious video game players
Within a decade the net will be able to deliver smells as fast as it does data, predicts a report.

The forecast came in a wide-ranging survey produced by the South Korean government to find out what consumers will want from future technologies.

[...]

The long-range predictions in the survey came from interviews carried out with about 3,500 technology experts in South Korea.

The country has long been known for its dedication to hi-tech.

Net-using citizens enjoy some of the highest speed broadband connections in the world, widespread high-speed mobile networks and the country's education system makes extensive use of the net to teach and track pupils' progress.

The hi-tech panel behind the report believed that, by 2015, the net will be used to deliver data about smells to a fragrance cartridge sitting next to a computer or other device accessing the net. [...]


for the full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6404067.stm

No comments: