Virtual Reality Gives “Cookie Monster” a Whole New Meaning

This fellow isn’t trying a new method of traveling incognito. Nor is he a space alien. (At least not according to the Men in Black.) Instead, this is Professor Takuji Naumi, making a point. Using his new invention, the Meta Cookie.

What’s his point? Well, first take a closer look at the apparatus. It has a small camera (the black lozenge hovering in the front, at the hairline), some cylinders and tubing. The camera’s pretty obviously looking at a cookie. What’s all the tubing and stuff for?

Smells. Cookie smells, to be exact. (Smell-o-Vision Returns, on small scale.)

What you don’t see is, this helmet from the Far Beyond is connected to a computer that is offering several yummy options in the video interface, which is hidden behind all the chemicals. You pick your favorite-looking cookie, then the computer takes over and offers you some scrumptious odors. You take a bite of the cookie in your hand (being extra-careful where you bite, as you’re really not seeing your hand, just a computer-generated simulacrum), and Voila! Viola! You’re eating your chosen cookie.

Even if the wafer in your fingers is cardboard.

Dr. Naumi is demonstrating that a major part of taste is smell. Only he’s taking this one step further and letting you choose your food, while offering you something else. Which could be a stale choco-chip biscuit left over from your kid’s sixth birthday party. You know, the one who’s graduating college next year? (The kid, not the cookie; keep up here, okay?) Or it could be a piece of foam rubber cut from a used Dr. Scholl’s insole. Worse yet, it might be one of those horrendous low-calorie diet cookies. You’ll never know, because the VR interface shows you a beautiful confection, and you get those wonderful smells.

I bet when you let your kids watch Sesame Street that you’d never envisioned such a disturbing intersection of technology and food. Cookie Monster, indeed…

Enjoy the (Bizarre Sweets Machine) Heat!