What's That Smell? Text-Activated Scents Might Replace Your Ringtone

While the compact simplicity of "LOL" might be easy on the eyes and fingertips, and even acceptable overheard rolling off someone's tongue, if you're sensorially inclined, chances MMS messaging is leaving your olfactory system out. Not anymore:

iScent is a Bluetooth-enabled atomizer which effectively turns ringtones into scented mist. Crafted in the form of an innocuously-shaped turreted tower, and accompanying app, this new Kickstarter project from smartphone-tech research and development company, Qblinks, aims to expand your immersion in social media by conquering the inside of your nose. Not only does the atomizer work with "all kinds" of liquefied smells and essential oils, it even has a "Party Mode" that disperses its mists to ambient sounds, including conversations and music:

Via Kickstarter:

In ancient China, the Wolf Tower was used mainly to alert soldiers of the danger of encroaching neighbors. Soldiers would burn the excreta of wolves to create a smoke signal atop the tower. Other towers would then be able to spot the smoke signal from afar, and then create their own smoke signal which would pass the message further along to the next tower, and so on. […]

In the modern world, people use mobile phones to communicate. We are inundated with social media notifications. At the end of the day, those notifications are just like the smoke signals rising from the top of the Wolf Tower - messages.

Available in grey, brown, and white, while iScent is only a fraction of the way into its $33,000 Kickstarter goal, the project still has 28 days to convince people what their noses already know: in a world of visual and haptic technological immersion, even common scents stand out.

Head over to Kickstarter to learn more about iScent.

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