Monday, July 14, 2003		Feature

Saying it with virtual flowers

TWO students of a Tamil Nadu engineering college have come up with a prototype for a fragrant e-card that will carry the perfumes of India worldwide by just the click of a mouse.

Named ESTER, the card concept was presented by K. Sowmya and V. Viswadhara Meenakshi, at an Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers’ Association conference on consumer electronics held in Los Angeles, USA.

The technology provides for an e-card that can smell of roses or jasmines.

"A small program is written to activate a chip that interfaces between a personal computer and the card ESTER (Experience Smell Through Electronic Reality)," say these final year students of St. Joseph’s College of Engineering.

The program compares the incoming signal with that on its database. "It is connected to a dispenser that on recognition of a particular perfume, dispenses it based on smell," the girls explain.

The receiver gets an e-card on his or her birthday that smells of roses. "It is almost as if someone has brought you a bouquet of flowers," says their college director Babu Manohar.

ESTER can also be used therapeutically, to treat respiratory diseases through aroma or drug inhalation.

The college arranged for the girls to present the prototype at the Los Angeles conference and meet chemical and electronic engineers with their novel idea for eight months.

They are now back in India, giving final touches to their project. These young innovators are now looking at funding that will enable them to produce e-cards with scents and perfumes commercially.— Indo-Asian News Service