'Lollipop' Device Brings Taste To Virtual Reality (ieee.org) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from IEEE Spectrum: Virtual- and augmented-reality setups already modify the way users see and hear the world around them. Add in haptic feedback for a sense of touch and a VR version of Smell-O-Vision, and only one major sense remains: taste. To fill the gap, researchers at the City University of Hong Kong have developed a new interface to simulate taste in virtual and other extended reality (XR). The group previously worked on other systems for wearable interfaces, such as haptic and olfactory feedback. To create a more "immersive VR experience," they turned to adding taste sensations, says Yiming Liu, a coauthor of the group's research paper published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The lollipop-shaped lickable device can produce nine different flavors: sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian, and grapefruit. Each flavor is produced by food-grade chemicals embedded in a pocket of agarose gel. When a voltage is applied to the gel, the chemicals are transported to the surface in a liquid that then mixes with saliva on the tongue like a real lollipop. Increase the voltage, and get a stronger flavor. Initially, the researchers tested several methods for simulating taste, including electrostimulating the tongue. The other methods each came with limitations, such as being too bulky or less safe, so the researchers opted for chemical delivery through a process called iontophoresis, which moves chemicals and ions through hydrogels and has a low electrical-power requirement. With a 2-volt maximum, the device is well within the human safety limit of 30 V, which is considered enough to deliver a substantial shock in some situations. Some of the possible applications mentioned by the authors include gustation tests, virtual grocery shopping, and immersive environments for exploring food flavors. However, the current system is limited to one hour of use due to gel depletion and it only supports a handful of flavor channels.
Future development aims to extend operation time, increase flavor complexity, and improve usability, marking the beginning of a new frontier for XR interfaces.
The lollipop-shaped lickable device can produce nine different flavors: sugar, salt, citric acid, cherry, passion fruit, green tea, milk, durian, and grapefruit. Each flavor is produced by food-grade chemicals embedded in a pocket of agarose gel. When a voltage is applied to the gel, the chemicals are transported to the surface in a liquid that then mixes with saliva on the tongue like a real lollipop. Increase the voltage, and get a stronger flavor. Initially, the researchers tested several methods for simulating taste, including electrostimulating the tongue. The other methods each came with limitations, such as being too bulky or less safe, so the researchers opted for chemical delivery through a process called iontophoresis, which moves chemicals and ions through hydrogels and has a low electrical-power requirement. With a 2-volt maximum, the device is well within the human safety limit of 30 V, which is considered enough to deliver a substantial shock in some situations. Some of the possible applications mentioned by the authors include gustation tests, virtual grocery shopping, and immersive environments for exploring food flavors. However, the current system is limited to one hour of use due to gel depletion and it only supports a handful of flavor channels.
Future development aims to extend operation time, increase flavor complexity, and improve usability, marking the beginning of a new frontier for XR interfaces.
Soo .. no pussy flavor? (Score:5, Funny)
Anything new is always used for porn first ..
WTF?!?
Durian comes close enough (Score:2)
especially mixed with milk and salt.
Re: (Score:2)
especially mixed with milk and salt.
Good lord - who you been hanging out with? I mean, I've been with a couple who weren't morning fresh, But if that thang smells like Durian, gonna miss me with that.
Re: (Score:2)
Anything new is always used for porn first ..
WTF?!?
Exactly..although selling grape-flavored pussy to virgins wouldn’t technically be deception..
Enshittification then this article. (Score:2)
We get it Slashdot editors, and no you are not alone. The question is what do you do about it when the brown lollipop is in your face? What really matters at that moment. You ARE the universe. There is nothing higher than what it tried to express when it was born as you. So will you nerds rise to that truth? Or will continue to assume there is a very rational ethical order you just do not understand due to your myopic focus on nerd tech, and you should lick it?
No. Break free. Fear nothing.
All right, I've finished my turn with the lollipop (Score:4, Insightful)
Here you go, your turn now.
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, Tony, we know you don't have any friends... Pretending like that is so, so, very sad...
Re: (Score:2)
It's the same as with eating at a restaurant (they wash the cutlery). Here they'd wash the lollipop-shaped metal support between users, and dip it into new hydrogel. Same as you would with a spoon of honey in a sweet shop.
Re: All right, I've finished my turn with the loll (Score:1)
Cutlery is made of solid metal, non porous. With the lollipop it more like washing chewing gum between users.
Re: (Score:2)
They change the chewing gum part. In a lollipop analogy, their invention is like reusing the small plastic bit in the center. Maybe a future horrific version will have long-life porous gum, but the version described in the paper needs gel replacement:
One of the major limitations of the current interface is that it can be used for only one hour before the chemical-infused gels effectively run out. The gels continuously shrink during use, so after an hour, the flavor-generation rate will be extremely low and the gel should be replaced, says Liu. https://spectrum.ieee.org/virt... [ieee.org]
How many licks to get to the center of this VRPop? (Score:4, Funny)
One!
Two!
*Crunch*
~^~^~^~ZaP~^~^~^~
Nope (Score:3)
Re:Nope (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention that any mitigations will involve keeping the taste device out of your mouth until needed. Which means it needs to be found by the user in physical reality (breaks the immersion. The one thing you avoid at all costs in VR / AR.) prior to use, and needs a safe place for the drool covered object to be placed afterwards. That's a lot of crap that needs to be done for a two second virtual taste. So most won't do so as the reward isn't worth the time and additional effort.
Then there's the fact that this thing requires refills to keep working, and probably has expiration dates for them.... So whenever the product fails to attract routine use (and it will fail) all of a sudden those who fell for it will be left with an unusable device they probably spent big $$$$ on.
Meanwhile these idiots still can't get hand controllers to come with a VR / AR kit as standard issue. We're still getting stupid gamepads, hockey pucks, and giant dildos as the default controller. Which breaks immersion even more (Yes Mr. Developer, I want to use the cup by pointing my dildo laser pointer at it....*eyeroll*), and makes it so that game developers won't code their games to use the hand controllers because they can't expect the players to have them. That's the real low hanging fruit in VR / AR and they can't even get that done right.
Re: (Score:3)
1) Point dildo controller at container.
2) Align dildo laser pointer until taste option appears. (WARNING: Do NOT change position afterwards or you'll be tasting the toilet bowl water that Bethesda put the container in!!!!)
3) Pull dildo trigger. 4) Put down dildo controller after "Place your taste module in mouth" prompt appears.
5) Find taste module in physical reality.
6) Grimace that you should probably clean this th
Re: (Score:2)
The porn references aside, I think that taste is the one sense that we really shouldn't try to replicate until after we can bypass the whole put on tongue / in mouth part and send the raw bioelectrical signals they generate to the brain directly.
We live in a world where rampant hacking of both software and hardware have become hobby-level activities. We also live in a world where some humans torture other humans, either for profit or just for kicks. And here you are advocating for the casual induction of olfactory sensations via electrical stimulation of the brain?
Give your head a shake man, if only in an attempt to dislodge the 'trodes!
Re: (Score:2)
Further, no-one said that sending the signals required electrodes being stuck into your hippocampus. A tech advancement that could bypass the sensory organs and talk to the bra
Re: Nope (Score:2)
Imagine working in a QA dept of this startup.
Hmm ... (Score:2)
I'm both wary of and excited about anything that uses the words "voltage" and "tongue" in the same sentence. :-)
The phrase "amped up" comes to mind...
Re: (Score:2)
I'm both wary of and excited about anything that uses the words "voltage" and "tongue" in the same sentence. The phrase "amped up" comes to mind... :-)
The official test of 9 Volt batteries. Their charge state depends on the tingle.
Pfftg - Johnny-come-lately (Score:3)
My VR has always tasted like Whiskey
Weirdly, so do my spredhseets... and Netflix....
Hmmmmm
finally (Score:2)
...a technology where porn probably won't lead the way.
virtual grocery shopping (Score:2)
What kind of shopper are you that you need to taste. Smell, yes, but taste?
I guess you could virtually shop Costco on a Saturday and taste all the samples. I'm not sure what the point would be.
On the list of tech priorities (Score:2)