the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Smell-O-Vision is back ,the Digital scent tech has a long history of failures, from Smell-O-Vision to iSmell, an attempt to perfume the internet. But what about VR, a medium designed for immersion? That’s what Vermont-based startup OVR Technology is all about. According to the company’s website , “Scent makes virtual experiences more engaging, more immersive, more emotional, and more effective.”
In 1959 an American film producer Mike Todd Jr , Swiss inventor Hans Laube, and the ‘Smell-O-Vision’ machine, which produced smells in synchronization with action in a film. It was used for the 1960 film ‘The Scent of Mystery.’ The BBC in a 1965 April Fool’s Day report. The broadcaster pranked television audiences in England by claiming that they’d perfected Smell-O-Vision.
Smell-O-Vision was briefly mentioned in the movie Sleeper a 1973 American science fiction comedy film parodying a dystopic future of the United States in 2173, directed by Woody Allen and written by Allen and Marshall Brickman. The plot involves the misadventures of the owner of a health food store who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an ineptly led police state.
While readers may be wondering whether Smell-O-Vision will finally replace Television , we kind of thought it already did .
VR… the ultimate population control.