W3C CSS Odor Module Released

The web was always a visual medium, but with the addition of sound and video it has locked up two human senses. With development of specifications and techniques around vibration, the internet you "feel" is getting closer, too. That leaves only a couple senses left to cover

Ever since the late 90s, companies have proposed different methods for bringing the sense of smell to the web. If successful it's a necessary lead-in before taste can be transmitted (since so much of taste is based on smell). That day is even closer as of this week.

Previous attempts failed (DigiScent, RealAroma) partly because they were attempting to encode core odor indicators in markup, making for bulky pages with strings of adjectives to describe certain smells. They lacked more subtle indicators of smells, relying instead on keywords (such as rose, which can vary greatly depending on many biological factors). This variance in odor has contributed to the other key reason other proposals have failed — hardware makers struggling with consistent smells. These are the reasons that the ATML (Aroma Text Markup Language) and OML (Olfactory Markup Language) never took off.

The W3C is now trying its hand at bringing smell to the web. Just as CSS separates things like color style from markup, it will also be the driving force behind smell — W3C CSS Odor Module.

Just as colors are defined in CSS3 as RGB values with transparency (RGBA), smells are defined in Odor CSS by the base taste flavors (to promote accessibility for those with reduced or damaged olfactory function) along with intensity. The base taste flavors should look familiar to most of us: sweet, bitter, sour, salty, and umami.

Future plans for taste will include texture, but that will rely on coming haptic technology development that doesn't exist yet.

The CSS markup will look familiar too, since the syntax is designed to lean on developers' experience with color, using percentages for the base "flavors" and a decimal value for intensity (similar to transparency):


#rose {

  odor: s(78%,7%,3%,0%,23%,0.4);

  /* sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami, intensity */

}

#steak {

  odor: s(5%,18%,8%,27%,89%,0.8);

  /* sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami, intensity */

}


Browser makers are already throwing support behind the specification, probably because they only need to put together an API. Producing the smells will be up to hardware makers. If you want to experiment, Opera and Firefox are already working support into their plans, and Webkit nightlies have support for it as well. A pre-fixed version of the above would like this:


#rose {

  -mozilla-odor: s(78%,7%,3%,0%,23%,0.4);

  -webkit-odor: s(78%,7%,3%,0%,23%,0.4);

  -o-odor: s(78%,7%,3%,0%,23%,0.4);

  odor: s(78%,7%,3%,0%,23%,0.4);

  /* sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami, intensity */

}

#steak {

  -mozilla-odor: s(5%,18%,8%,27%,89%,0.8);

  -webkit-odor: s(5%,18%,8%,27%,89%,0.8);

  -o-odor: s(5%,18%,8%,27%,89%,0.8);

  odor: s(5%,18%,8%,27%,89%,0.8);

  /* sweet, bitter, sour, salty, umami, intensity */

}


Now all we need is some sort of hardware to identify the different intensities that make up an odor, otherwise experimentation might make for some awful results. I doubt a Smell of Books-style solution will fit for this since I don't have enough hands to spray five different flavors, nor the skill to spray in the right intensity.

Update, April 1, 2013

It is my understanding from the folks at Opera who are working on all-things-web-for-your-TV that the CSS Odor Module will play a big part in the technology behind this story from New Scientist: Smell-o-vision screens let you really smell the coffee (March 29, 2013).

When Matsukura, the inventor of the display, says the next stage is to incorporate a cartridge, like those for printers, which allows smells to be changed easily, what he's referencing is the mapping of the odors as outlined in the specification.

Update, November 21, 2013

Example of this technology in action (read more):