Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Google AdCense Improves Olfactory Relevancy
Google AdCense is now available in a beta release. AdCense computers look at the advertising content on your site, focus on the keywords used in the text and graphic images and deliver a relevant and vaguely agreeable odor.
The new service is intended to improve the experience of most computer users by providing relevant olfactory content. Typically, the way a computer smells has nothing to do with the content presented on the screen. Studies show that increased relevancy results in more satisfied users and improved pay per click advertising.
Science fiction fans will of course recall the odalarm by Frank Herbert, which wakes you up with an appropriate odor. See also last week's Science Fiction in the News article Frank Herbert's Odalarm - A Scent-Based Alarm Clock.
A Google Challenge was issued in late 2002; a team was formed of the best entrants. After coding diligently for 8 months, non-technical people in focus groups were asked to press their noses to CRTs and LCD flat panels displays and describe their experience. The most common response from participants was "sorta smelled like ozone." Noting that people like fresh scents, developers pressed on. A brief success was made with the smell of peanut butter and jelly, but it appeared to function only on "Bring Your Child to Work" day.
Google insiders reluctantly revealed that initially it was hoped that AdScents could be delivered. However, given the difficulty of delivering identifiable, verifiable odors to every computer without additional hardware, this was abandoned. Also, it was realized that this would be very difficult to internationalize.
Finally, developers made use of a combination of downloaded software utilities that would overclock and even hyperclock a computer's CPU, causing small amounts of magic smoke to escape. This, combined with other odors emitted by heavily taxed hard disk drives (using the same technique once used to get drum hard drives to "walk"), would create a small but usable set of vaguely pleasant odors. Thus, AdCense was born.
Why hasn't this program advanced past the beta stage? Cynics point out that rich media online advertising both delays content download and grotesquely interrupts the user's experience; they stink and there's nothing you can do about it.
Happy April Fool's Day!
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/1/2004)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 1 )
Related News Stories - (" Misc ")
Is There A Subterranean Ocean?
'A vast, limitless expanse of water, the end of a lake if not of an ocean, spread before us, until it was lost in the distance.'- Jules Verne, 1864.
The Robotic Shopping Cart Of The Future
'...the machine would carry his bag in its soft plastic jaws and follow him as faithfully as a well-trained hound.'- John Brunner, 1975.
Arctic Resource Jackpot An Old Wish
By inducing climate change, new resources are revealed.
Marie Curie's Papers Still Radioactive
And the half-life of radium's most common isotope is 1,601 years.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Chaffeur Robot Musashi Will Drive Your Regular Car
'What would you do,' Eric asked the robot cabdriver, 'if your wife had turned to stone, your best friend were a toad, and you had lost your job?'
Space Exporers! Now, You Can Drink Your Own Urine
'those suits they wear -- call them 'stillsuits' -- that reclaim the body's own water...'
SpaceX EVA Spacesuit Tested By Polaris Dawn Crew
'Now, except for weight and heat, the same conditions prevail in this chamber as in space.'
Automatic Bot Traffic Is 38 Percent Of HTTP Requests
'there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net...'
Shanghai Guidelines For Humanoid Robots
'Now, look, let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics...'
Desktop TARS Robot From Interstellar
What's YOUR sarcasm setting?
Robots Can Now Have Smiling Faces With Human Skin
'I am a cybernetic organism...'
Virtual Rat Predicts Actual Rat Neural Activity
'..the synthetic intellects at the Place of Knowledge had far outstripped the minds of men.'
GoSun EV Solar Charger Drapes Onto Your Car
'...six square yards of sunpower screens.'
Rizon 4 Ironing Robot
'But after washing and drying clothes had to be smooth - free from fine lines and wrinkles ...'
Cognify - A Prison Of The Mind We've Seen Before In SF
'So I serve a hundred years in one day...'
Robot With Human Brain Organoid - 'A Thrilling Story Of Mechanistic Progress'
'A human brain snugly encased in a transparent skull-shaped receptacle.'
Goodness Gracious Me! Google Tries Face Recognition Security
'The actuating mechanism that should have operated by the imprint of her image on the telephoto cell...'
With Mycotecture, We'll Just Grow The Space Habitats We Need
'The only real cost was in the plastic balloon that guided the growth of the coral and enclosed the coral's special air-borne food.'
Can A Swarm Of Deadly Drones Take Out An Aircraft Carrier?
'The border was defended by... a swarm of quasi-independent aerostats.'
WiFi and AI Team Up To See Through Walls
'The pitiless M rays pierced Earth and steel and densest concrete as if they were so much transparent glass...'
