The first gulp is sweet. Then they switch some setting on the electrodes buzzing my tongue, and the same liquid tastes… sour. Bitter lemon sour. I’m at the virtual reality lab at the National University of Singapore, sipping on the world’s first digital slurpee, its taste delivered to my brain via TOIp (taste over internet protocol).
Taste, smell, texture, heat? They are all, they tell me, about to be digitised. “Who needs to travel to a family lunch,” one of the lab team asks me, “when you can have your granny’s roast chicken in VR, and without any bones?”
Tesla Studios is now working ...
There are approximately 515 more words in this article.
To read the rest of this article, please buy this issue, or join the Resurgence Trust. As a member you will receive access to the complete archive of magazines from May 1966.
If you are already a member, please Sign in
