The Matrix
From Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall to Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, Hollywood is fascinated by virtual reality. In real life, virtual reality devices don’t come close to mirroring the movies. But teams from York and Warwick University, along with experts from the Universities of Bangor, Bedford and Brighton are looking to change this.

‘Virtual Reality systems have concentrated on one or two of the senses,’ says Professor David Howard, Head of the Media Engineering Research Group in the Department of Electronics at York University. They are working on the idea of a Virtual Cocoon. It’s a headset which could stimulate all five senses.

Smell and taste
‘Smell and taste are probably the hardest things to do,’ explains Howard. ‘My colleague at the University of Warwick, Alan Chalmers, has some shrewd ideas of how to deal with smell.’ They believe that if they give ‘the smell in very small doses, one, two, or three little breaths in, and present it very locally to the nose, which the cocoon helmet mock-up shows, with the tube under the nose, then you have pretty good control over the smell.’

Smell is important because ‘the majority of taste is smell,' explains Professor Howard. ‘When you have a cold and go out for a meal it’s not a terribly exciting experience. You can’t smell the wine, you can’t smell the food.’ There are taste centres on the tongue, and on a show reel they have pictured someone putting a taste ‘receiver’ in their mouth which would stimulate the tongue, and ‘we hope also give some textural information as to whether the food is hard, soft, or crunchy. That’s all highly speculative at the moment but that’s the way we think we might interact with our own taste sensation.’

Sensory overload
There are many possible applications for a credible Virtual Reality device, from educational ‘visits’ to Ancient Rome, to medical consultations. Professor Howard points out, the lack of ‘reality’ in many training simulators means that they can’t reproduce the ‘sensory overload’ you experience in moments of danger. Professor Howard and his colleagues have mapped out a direction, and exhibited their work at a ‘Pioneers 09’ event at London’s Olympia Centre. Further funding for Real Virtuality may open up the past and the future.