Maps with scents? The Globe and Mail explains:

Carleton University cybercartographer Fraser Taylor and his colleagues have already developed multimedia maps and atlases that use sound, music, photos and artwork to convey information about places such as Antarctica and the Arctic. Now he and doctoral student Tracey Lauriault are working on maps with scents.

They are putting together a prototype of a scented digital map. It will use a virtual odour display, or scent diffuser, a device that is available commercially for as little as $369 U.S. One particular model releases up to 60 scents from a cartridge containing liquid scent capsules. Think of it like a desktop ink-jet printer, Ms. Lauriault said. Essential oils are heated and diffused into the air with a small fan. The computer tells it which scents to release, with options that include the smell of coffee, an apple orchard or burnt wires. The software allows people to make personalized scents, which they can transfer by “smell-mail” to someone else with a diffuser. The scents can also be used in interactive web-based applications.

Since very few of us have scent diffusers attached to our computers (damn it, I’m fresh out of USB ports), this is a technology that will have to wait until smellivision becomes ubiquitous.