The “meta cookie”!! What is it, you ask? It’s a virtual reality device that can transform a plain cookie into whatever flavor you want it to be (ok fine, right now it’s limited to only 7 flavors, but a girl can dream, right?). Finally, research is being done on *important* issues! I mean, a world in which you can fool your brain into thinking it’s eating your favorite cookie at any time, well that’s progress.
According to the creators of the contraption, it works by:
to create the effect, the team branded a plain cookie with a distinct logo that the headset tracks via a built-in camera. An air pump sprays out the smell of the chosen cookie, increasing its concentration as the system “sees” the cookie approaching the wearer’s nose.
Meanwhile, a visual display in the headset shows an image of the chosen cookie, suggesting the correct texture for that flavour.
The combination of smell and visual texture combine to fool the user’s sense of taste into thinking they are eating a flavoured cookie instead of the plain one.
Ain’t science grand? This is almost enough to heal my broken heart after the liquid pencil Sharpie turned out to be not as advertised…
(via New Scientist)
I’d buy that cookie for a dollar!