Augmented Reality Cookies Confuse Tastebuds

[Tom Goldman]

Augmented Reality Cookies Confuse Tastebuds


The future of augmented reality is in pastries that can taste like other pastries.

I had always thought that virtual reality devices would someday be used to make us think we could travel to unimaginable worlds through the depths of time and space. We haven't gotten there yet, but we're making progress through pastry. Japanese researchers have successfully made a device that can change the flavor of a plain cookie to just about anything.

Anything cookie related, that is. Let's say you're down on your luck and all you can afford are plain cookies. With the Meta Cookie system, you could be eating a chocolate, almond, tea, strawberry, orange, maple, lemon, and I kid you not, even a cheese flavored cookie.

While the cookie is always the same flavor in real life, the Meta Cookie system uses "visual and olfactory information" to trick the user. It works by stamping an augmented reality marker on top of the cookie which is read by a headset that interprets the cookie with a different look than it actually has. The headset also covers the nose, and provides a smell for the user that depends on what cookie he/she wants to eat.

The term the researchers use for this phenomenon is "pseudo-gustation." This type of trick appears to work with cookies because they can easily have the same texture and shape, but many different flavors.

Meta Cookie is cool, but I doubt a product like this would ever become more than an experiment. I think a pack of strawberry cookies is something like $4 for 100 . It doesn't seem very cost-effective to purchase a VR helmet just so my plain cookie can pretend to be fruit flavored. If it could make a cracker taste like Fugu [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugu], I'd be sold.

Via: io9 [http://io9.com/5608335/meta-cookie-can-taste-like-any-cookie-you-want-+-as-long-as-youre-willing-to-wear-the-headgear]

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[Kross]

This seems like Smell-O-Vision [http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?title=smelloscope&videoId=156616] to me.

 

[Dr. wonderful]

Cheese favor cookies!?

For the win!

Seriously, Let's see what they can do with it, How about a pillow? Soon, your pillow can be anything, a couch, a bed, a busty girlfriend...

Actually, let's start working on that right now.

 

[mad825]

People might see this as a waste of time but in all honesty, doesn't almost every technology work out this way?

really? nothing comes to mind, even research on how to create the perfect toast has more usefulness than this but then again it might save some money for television/film industry as they wont have to spend an extra 10p on chocolate biscuits as props.

 

[Jared]

That would be so weird! If I picked up a Chesse and ham Pasty and it tasted like a Cornish...I would...god, insanity insues!

 

[tmujir955]

This is actually crazy genius. Think about it: we can make cookies taste like any flavor whatever we want, and maybe in the future we will be able to make tofu taste like beef or something. Food shortage crisis solved!

 

[RowdyRodimus]

Too bad they're in Japan testing this. If they were in America you'd get 3 billion dollars in grant money if you claimed it was a way to fight childhood obesity, four billion if you were part of a union.

 

[Distorted Stu]

The endless amounts of flavoured cheese i could eat, all for the price of a block fo cheddar <3

 

[Kilo24]

<a href='/news/view/102691-Augmented-Reality-Cookies-Confuse-
Meta Cookie is cool, but I doubt a product like this would ever become more than an experiment. I think a pack of strawberry cookies is something like $4 for 100 . It doesn't seem very cost-effective to purchase a VR helmet just so my plain cookie can pretend to be fruit flavored.

Think of the applications to dieting: that crappy cardboard no-sugar cookie tasting like a quality one.

More insane and expensive diet programs have been tried. Especially if this one actually works...

 

[Mimssy]

That'd be a pretty fun experiment to work on. Imagine going back to school reunion and there's all these people who picked practical jobs at banks and offices and you're the dude who can make cookies taste like a BBQ sandwich.

 

[Electrogecko]

At least plain cookies are healthier than chocolate.

 

[Kuchinawa212]

Awww no! I thought just the cake was a lie!

 

[Trivun]

On the one hand, this is a bit of a waste. The main draw for me in terms of stuff like cookies is texture, as well as flavour. I love toffee cookies, but prefer them to have the big lumps of toffee in them, so they're nice and chewy, something you don't get in the plain cookies. So I would prefer toffee cookies to plain ones, if that makes sense.

However, as an experiment, this seems really awesome. It's showcasing a new technology that if developed properly could potentially be able to affect the way people use all five senses and process that information in our brains. From a gaming point of view, that would be brilliant for total immersion, rather than having fans or heaters and vibrating armchairs (the 'immersive' technology sold at the moment in places like Argos and Comet) to make you feel part of the action, you could instead actually feel the heat, cold, water, wind, impact of projectiles, hell even the pain, that your character feels, despite not being in the game. It would trick your mind into actually feeling those things.

And of course, from a non-gaming point of view, there are so many possibilities for this sort of technology. One could be medicine, allowing people who have lost their senses to gain an artificial version of those senses by manipulating the brain directly. It's risky, but if the kinks were ironed out (I'm assuming that this early in the development of such an experiment, kinks are inevitable), this could be a major breakthrough in the realms of neuroscience in general...

 

[OceanRunner]

On the one hand, this is a bit of a waste. The main draw for me in terms of stuff like cookies is texture, as well as flavour. I love toffee cookies, but prefer them to have the big lumps of toffee in them, so they're nice and chewy, something you don't get in the plain cookies. So I would prefer toffee cookies to plain ones, if that makes sense.

However, as an experiment, this seems really awesome. It's showcasing a new technology that if developed properly could potentially be able to affect the way people use all five senses and process that information in our brains. From a gaming point of view, that would be brilliant for total immersion, rather than having fans or heaters and vibrating armchairs (the 'immersive' technology sold at the moment in places like Argos and Comet) to make you feel part of the action, you could instead actually feel the heat, cold, water, wind, impact of projectiles, hell even the pain, that your character feels, despite not being in the game. It would trick your mind into actually feeling those things.

And of course, from a non-gaming point of view, there are so many possibilities for this sort of technology. One could be medicine, allowing people who have lost their senses to gain an artificial version of those senses by manipulating the brain directly. It's risky, but if the kinks were ironed out (I'm assuming that this early in the development of such an experiment, kinks are inevitable), this could be a major breakthrough in the realms of neuroscience in general...

The different taste thing seemskind of pointless to me, but the medical benefits would indeed be fantastic.

 

[Mr.Squishy]

Pastries seem to have taken a large turn towards questionable status as of the last five years...*shifty eyes*

OT: Holy shit, it's magic! Or it might as well be, according to jack vance, who wrote that "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and "sufficiently explained magic is indistinguishable from technology". I think.