Smellophone makes good scents

Imagine walking past a row of fragrant flowers and being able to stop and capture the blossomy scent on your cell phone. A gadget on the horizon called the Smellophone could make that possible.

Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan are developing a unique brand of technology that can pick up just about any scent, then analyze and play it back on command. We got wind of this handheld device via Daily Mail and New Scientist Tech.

The Tokyo team of engineers, led by Pambuk Somboon, claim the device works by recording smells when pointed in the direction of their source.

The technology can reportedly record any smell onto a 15-microchip grid. The grid defines the odor and then recreates it from a combination of 96 non-toxic chemicals that are heated and vaporized to form a gas, or "smell."

The phone's sensors can produce thousands of different combinations of scents, according to Somboon. In tests so far, the system has successfully recorded and reproduced the smell of an orange, a lemon, red and green apples, a banana and melon, according to New Scientist Tech.

If the technology can ultimately do more than recreate basic fruit smells, it will do wonders for me in my search for perfume. No more wasted afternoons leaving the mall with nothing but a headache and 30 scented paper squares. If a heavenly aroma passes me on the street, I can just record it and play it back for the salesperson.

And when having a difficult time in a public restroom with the line outside growing and no air freshener to be seen, would people be able to whip out their Smellophone and dial up some rosy-scented relief?

The possibilities, and the smells, are seemingly endless. Until then, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my nose plugged.