Scent phone: sensory mobiles where different scents could be transmitted across devices for wellbeing, fashion, lifestyle and social networking

In just over twenty-five years, the wireless industry has become wildly successful and delivered value for consumers through investing and innovating in technology and business models for voice and data services. In the process the industry has recruited two thirds of the world’s population as customers and totally changed the way we communicate with each other. The industry is now in perhaps its most dynamic phase ever. Traditional players face many new challenges as the uptake of the mobile internet accelerates, the pressures on voice and SMS revenues from “Over The Top” (OTT) Internet brands increases, and consumer attention and brand value migrates to manufacturers and service providers who offer ecosystems of Smart Phones, Tablets, Apps and TV. The conference will address issues and ask if we are entering a new era of growth for operators and device manufacturers, or does the disruption caused by Internet brands, and the accompanying value transfer, threaten to undermine these traditional players’ future, and perhaps the whole ecosystem around them?

My presentation was well attended in the specialist parallel Track Session: 'Where next for devices?', alongside ARM and Broadcom and chaired by Zahid Ghadialy from Explanotech. It mapped my journey from employment at Charmed Technology (MIT Media Lab startup in wearable wireless and mobile devices) in 2000, through to current research and commercialisation plans at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and the Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, focusing on sensory mobiles where different scents could be transmitted across devices for wellbeing, fashion, lifestyle and social networking.

• http://www.cambridgewireless.co.uk/Prese...