2024 MIT Digital Technology and Strategy Conference: Lightning Talk - Tellus Technologies

MANISHA MOHAN: Hello, everyone. I'm Manisha, and I'm here with Tellus Technology presenting for you all Scent Symphony, a technology platform which will bring you closer to reality. Most of the multisensory experiences generally have audio, visual, and nowadays even haptics. But something is generally missing out there, and that is the sense of smell.

We are trying to solve this problem. Mainly, the scent issue has been used a lot many times as an example in different VR situations in theaters. But we face a small problem there, and that is related to the storage or the handling. Sometimes it relates to the cross contamination of the fragrances within the system, and even in the environment once they are dispensed. And the ventilation issue.

As we continue to solve these problems through our technology, which we developed at MIT and later on after I graduated from the program, we can now provide scent modules of different form factors in different sizes, even in the shape of a button as well. But what's unique about our technology is the way we encapsulate these fragrances. We make sure that they are not any more in liquid format and cannot be oxidized directly in air. Our technology ensures that the fragrances we encapsulate live for longer period of time-- somewhere between few months to few years as well.

With Scent Symphony, we are trying to empower and make the experiences more and more immersive in 2D, virtual reality, in communal spaces, and even in personal spaces where you are just exposed to fragrance near your space. Our journey started with just doing some pilot projects here and there. And we accidentally landed upon a project related in VR movies in Hollywood. Movie called as Le Musk.

RASHA GOEL: It takes a minute to even express how I'm feeling--

MANISHA MOHAN: This is an example--

RASHA GOEL: --right now, because--

MANISHA MOHAN: --of what we did and how this impacted in the VR space. We demoed our work at cons and then got the LA Infinity Award as well. Some of the testimonies are here.

SUSAN BRAZER: --why he was the originator of this piece.

RODRIGO CERQUEIRA: You noticed different scents in the experience. I think they're all kind of custom made for the film. That's what I heard. It's phenomenal. I think was--

MANISHA MOHAN: But now we're going a step forward. We are trying to integrate our platform with generative AI so we can throw in any kind of multimedia, XR/VR videos, and generate scents for any platform. Our system has incorporated more than 3,000 fragrance ingredients which can dispense any kind of fragrance just like an AI perfumer would do on the fly.

This is how we do it. Our technology uses local models which are deployed with our overlaying technology. And using all those cues, we are able to pick up the kinesthetics, the emotions, the pictorial imagery, and then dispense a related fragrance. The back end I would like to explain here.

For any common person who is looking at these two images would be like wow, this is a fruit basket. What's the real difference? But with our technology, we are able to give a final odor as an output which is more closer to a real human experience. As you can see here, a cut mango picture is going to actually smell like a final mango scent. Whereas in the other case, it's more on the citrusy side. Has a banana note to it.

Our team has expertise looking at fragrances in wide spectrum. We've been working in this space since 2016 while I started my research at MIT exploring how fragrances can impact sexual arousal. And then we delved into developing scent cameras and examining fragrances and how they impact human physiology.

So what's next? We are developing the world's first digital scent library, and we are looking to collaborate with people in the scent industry, in retail, in fashion, in experimental design, and also in AR/VR. Thank you.