On Monday, a group of Japanese researchers at a technology symposium in Berlin demonstrated a new chewing gum that shocks the tongue and whose taste never ends.
Such an invention will most likely never hit the shelves of the supermarket near your home, but for future virtual reality technologies, it can be very useful.
Most modern virtual reality systems manipulate vision and hearing. Only occasionally have researchers tried to use the sense of touch and taste, and so far have not achieved at least some significant success in this field, moreover, devices for conveying tastes have turned out to be too massive and unpleasant to look at.
The Japanese device looks like the most common chewing gum. But it has a small device built into it - the diameter of a very small coin - covered with a film that is impervious to saliva, and it is this that generates a constant electric current when a person chews such a gum. When electricity hits the user's tongue, he does not feel pain, but he has a sensation of taste - now bitter or salty. And until chewing stops, the person will still taste this taste.
The researchers believe they can mimic other flavors by altering the strength and pattern of electrical voltage generated during chewing. If everything goes well, then the sense of taste will also be involved in the next virtual realities, and not just sight or hearing.