{"id":744404,"date":"2013-04-01T10:38:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T14:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=625870"},"modified":"2013-04-01T10:38:13","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T14:38:13","slug":"google-nose-is-not-really-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/744404","title":{"rendered":"Google Nose is not really a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Google April Fool’s Day post on\u00a0Google Nose,<\/a>\u00a0a new service in beta that “leverages new and existing technologies to offer the sharpest olfactory experience available” may have been a joke, but it’s not that far from reality.<\/p>

Just ask IBM which last December said technologies that endow computers with a sense of smell<\/a> are on the cusp of reality, if not broad adoption. Or \u00a0Cyrano Sciences,\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0which\u00a0the\u00a0Washington Post<\/em><\/a>\u00a0points out, is\u00a0working to give machines a sense of smell. An electronic nose that could sniff out explosives and\u00a0food contaminants, could be hugely useful.<\/p>

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IBM, which fields a prodigious research organization, is convinced that endowing computers with human-like senses is a key focus and outlined its thoughts in its annual list of\u00a0five technologies<\/a>\u00a0to watch last December.<\/p>

Such technologies include chemical sensors that emit an odor when they detect some sort of pattern. “You can paint chemical sensors on a surface and when they detect a pattern, they give off a smell \u2014 you could make a rich paint with all sorts of sensors that mimic things that you like,\u201d \u00a0IBM fellow and VP of innovation Bernie Meyerson told me at the time.<\/p>

If integrated with a smartphone, for example, these technologies could tell from your breath that you have or are about to get a cold and enable your doctor to diagnose you remotely based on that information and prescribe treatment.<\/p>

So a computing device with a nose that knows is really not all that crazy.<\/p>

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