Mixed Reality Lab is working on a “digital taste system” to stimulate the taste sensations digitally on the tongue.  Although there are quite a lot of systems in auditory, vision, and haptic domains, remarkably few attempts has been made in the sense of taste. As an attempt to bridge this gap, Mixed Reality Lab has introduced a method for digitally actuating the sense of taste by exposing the tongue to specific electrical and thermal stimulations.

According to The Telegraph, this technology uses electrodes to stimulate the taste buds on the tongue to reproduce salt, sweet, sour and bitter sensations.  The technology also uses subtle changes in temperature to alter the taste experience.  This manipulates the magnitude of currect, frequency and temperature.  The digital taste system uses two methods, electrical stimulation and thermal stimulation, in order to stimulate the tip of the human tongue non-invasively.  This produces the primary taste sensations.

The researchers hope that the system could eventually be used to allow television viewers to experience tastes while they are watching their favorite programs.  Such an experience would add another dimension to watching television, expanding how people watch television.  This technology also seems like an advanced version of the scratch-and-sniff, which How Stuff Works describes as these stickers as aroma-generating chemicals encapsulated in gelatin or plastic spheres.  In contrast, this new technology does not use the actual taste in a small dose, but simulates something that is not there.

Time also reports another potential use.  By simulating the sensation of taste, individuals may be able to use the digital taste system to satisfy a craving without the calories or guilt.  The taste synthesizer, which consists of two thin metal slabs place on top of and under the tongue, works by tricking the body’s taste sensors with a varying alternating current and small changes in temperature. The machine does not currently simulate smell and texture, also an important part of taste, but the team is working on adding these features.

While the product has not yet reached its full development potential, only expressing basic tastes rather than complex flavors, it continues to progress and garner interest.  Mixed Reality expects to gain the digital controllability over the sense of taste through this device, as well as to invent effective communication, digital amplification, and optimization techniques. The importance of gaining digital controllability over the sense of taste is immense and open into various application domains such as communication, virtual environments, entertainment, and medical.