Sensabubble; A new kind of tech bubble

A Sensabubble is a soap bubble that briefly serves as a projection screen and after the burst that gives off a smell. The developers want to find out how smell can use to communicate information. As the name suggests, it is a bubble, more specifically a soap bubble at the center, which serves as an information carrier. It is filled with steam, so that it is opaque and thus it works as a good projection screen.

The user can look at it, and he can also grab it and bring it to burst. Then which will gives off a scent after it burst. To work out the system, the researchers at the University of Bristol have made this bubble generator, a Kinect and a projector. The bubble generator consists of a hopper with a blower at the large opening. Through a small opening steam can be filled with inside the bubble, which may be mixed with a fragrance, is blown into the hopper.

The front opening is pulled through a basin with soapy water, from which the vapor-filled bubbles are generated - they can be small, medium or large according to the need. The bubbles are hovering in space; they are controlled by the Kinect. It passes in front of the projector, There they are utilized as a projection screen and then it is set to glow with different colors or projected letters or icons on it . The chrono sensory aspect of Sensabubble lies in the fact that the information presented will live for a short time and is multimodal.

First, let the bubble can be used as a screen but only for a short time. Once they burst, they pour out an odor that spread slowly, for a longer perceptible trace of the event that leave the researchers write to Sriram Subramanian in an essay. According to Subramanian, an expert on human machine interaction, the human sense of smell is powerful, but there are few research systems that are looking for ways to use it. And we have to figure out first steps undertaken, as the smell can improve a visual object like a soap bubble, and how he can stay longer in it.

They searched for new ways to display information on other surfaces and to a different way Subramanian told the BBC. They experimented to create new and exciting experiences for users think of the laptop or Smartphone. For example; there is an app for calculating learning, to be placed on the screen of a mobile device in the bubbles to burst.

Sensabubble could bring it into reality and the children hunted bubbles, would be projected at the numbers, says Subramanian. Even for the advertising itself Sensabubble may help. A baker about could fill the bubbles with the smell of fresh pastries to attract customers. Subramanian and his colleagues want to present Sensabubble at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI). Hosted by the computer science society Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) CHI will take place from April 26 to May 1 in Toronto.