[HN Gopher] We Induced Smells With Ultrasound
___________________________________________________________________
We Induced Smells With Ultrasound
Author : exr0n
Score : 94 points
Date : 2025-11-21 20:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (writetobrain.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (writetobrain.com)
| mmulet wrote:
| This is exceptionally cool! It looks like this post isn't getting
| much love though. I'll see if I can get this post added to the
| second chance pool[1] and get it added to the front page!
|
| [1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
| dang wrote:
| Added! Thanks for requesting this.
|
| All: if you seen a particularly good submission that has fallen
| through the cracks, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can
| take a look and maybe put it in the second-chance pool
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/pool, explained at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308), so it will get
| a random re-upment on HN's front page.
|
| (Yes, it's permissible to request this for your own stuff, but
| we like it better when it's something you just ran across
| randomly and realized was interesting--as mmulet did in this
| case!)
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| We are witnessing the dawn of smell-o-vision teledildonic VR
| tentacle porn
| kirini wrote:
| No-one wants to hear about your weird fantasies, creep.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Definitely not my fantasy. Just a funny image of the future.
| efitz wrote:
| The angle and position of the transducer would make them
| leveragable by future VR headsets.
| droideqa wrote:
| After we have Smell-O-Vision[0] we should work on the next big
| step for the internet:
|
| <[SA]HatfulOfHollow> i'm going to become rich and famous after
| i invent a device that allows you to stab people in the face
| over the internet
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smell-O-Vision
| a-dub wrote:
| that's an interesting mix of smells. i can't help but wonder if
| it's resulting from stimulation or the sensing of byproducts of
| the process itself.
| krackers wrote:
| I'd maybe make a hypothesis that a large portion of the space is
| "bad" smelling stuff: smoke or garbage. When people had covid-
| induced parosmia, it almost always seemed to be bad smelling
| stuff.
| robrain wrote:
| Still have it, intermittently. A sort of nameless-but-familiar
| "chemical" smell that comes and goes, along with any sense of
| taste. That is, I have bad days with no taste, just a chemical
| smell. Other days I have a pretty good sense of smell,
| generally with a good sense of taste.
|
| Intriguingly some of the really unpleasant smells never get
| through to me - I could probably work at a sewage works now.
| Worryingly I have next to no ability to smell burning, though I
| do now get the smell of natural gas (or the additive used to
| make it smell).
| teuobk wrote:
| That was exactly my thought when reading the article and my
| personal experience with Covid. For a couple weeks, I perceived
| a persistent smell of something burning.
| nick__m wrote:
| If they achieve their goals; I don't know of any tech company I
| would trust with a direct write access to my brain.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I shudder to think what capability the execute bit would grant.
| cellular wrote:
| Those few smells of extremes (garbage /clean air) make me think
| they are saturating the sensors.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| I'm thinking it could be that we are very attuned to smelling
| bad smells because it's for safety.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| I predict a future where once again porn is the cutting edge with
| a cutting edge technology.
|
| porn + vr + smell
| kirini wrote:
| Of course the HN creeps and perverts immediately fantasize
| about porn in a thread on some fascinating human biology
| research.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| You made this account to reply to my joke comment? Haha weird
| amarant wrote:
| You're getting downvoted, likely for prudish reasons, but in
| all seriousness it doesn't seem unlikely that you're right.
|
| The porn industry has historically been very quick to adopt new
| technologies, it's easy to see how this could benefit that
| industry, so it's a logical enough conclusion to draw. They'll
| very likely be the first commercial application of this, once
| viable.
| zb3 wrote:
| I want it the other way - I want google "search this smell"
| feature..
| msuniverse2026 wrote:
| Reminds me of the vibration theory of olfaction.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibration_theory_of_olfaction
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Does everything come down to waves or to bits?
|
| Well, if it's waves, perhaps principles of consonance and
| dissonance might apply. Robert Hooke thought so...
| polishdude20 wrote:
| What kind of probe are they using?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-22 23:00 UTC)