A German company recently filed patents for scented text messages. Immediately after, mobile media giants began sniffing around. They claim that in less than two years from now you’ll be sending up to 100 different prefabricated scents via an added accessory the size of an SD-card: the scent chip.

Imagine sending a pumpkin-SMS on Thanksgiving to relatives, ocean smells to friends when on vacation, or that romantic raunchy stench you’re enjoying in the gas station’s bathroom.

If you’re anything like me, you may think that the idea of accurately projecting smells may seem a little fishy. For years networks and would-be innovators have toyed with the concept of anchoring scents to TV. Yet it never quite stuck. Convisual says it has been developing the project for over eight years and plans to release the chips only when they become both affordable and effective.

The sense of smell is one of the first human perceptions that develops in the womb. You better believe advertisers understand that primal urge. Convisual understands too. A built-in function gives you the option to reject messages based on the sender. Make no mistake, whether they are advertisers or telecom giants, companies are feral. And they’re waiting to waft their way into your wallet.

College students build one of the most advanced forms of artificial intelligence and what do they do with it? Have it rank how hot girls are. Typical, right?

An Israeli team of computer scientists have designed a system that can actually make aesthetic judgments. It started with a research group that was formed on campus. Thirty people were told to rate girl’s faces on a scale from 1-7. The pictures were then scanned and mapped mathematically.

Results of that scan revealed that out of all of the girls rated there was a pattern for facial features we humanoids consider “hot.” Those features consisted of things like averages, symmetry, color proportions and smoothness.

Our judgments about what a good looking girl looks like is based on sentiment and abstract considerations.  Needless to say, this is a pretty big step for a computer. It learned to identify beauty by observing human perceptions. That was based on processing some data instead of using a prescribed set of parameters.  After it ran it’s due course the computer came up with answers that were shockingly similar to the research study.

They say that the machine is still having some trouble with men. If you ask me, a guys attractiveness has always been as simple as one variable: income. Good thing those computer scientists are in for some big bucks after this invention.

Organic light being used to change images and text with paper-thin technology is coming on us fast. Ever dream of changing the wallpaper in your house on a whim to any color or pattern? What about having one piece of paper that constantly updates to any book or newspaper with the convenience of being able to fold it up and put it in your pocket?

Organic light-emitting diode’s (OLED) are made by organic compounds being trapped between a plastic polymer. The flat rows and columns are placed on a flat surface by a “printing” process. The results are a matrix of pixels that can turn diffrent colors on a very thin material that uses significantly less power than other light sources.

OLED’s have been around for a while. In fact, you can buy a Sony TV that was released in 2007 made up of the technology. To give you an idea of price point, the 11′ version goes for $1,700. The big headline isn’t that the technology exists, it’s how its being formatted and how that format will be of interest to your daily life.

GE recently unveiled the first demonstration of “roll-to-roll” processed OLEDs. Manufactured in this way, they could be made for a very low cost and are so thin they can be used as newspaper or even wall paper.

After four years the GE Research Team has a working prototype that they are eager to place on the production line. They affirm that there is a lot of work ahead, but the goal is to get us all grooving and shaking with paper thin devices as soon as is possible.

Imagine this: your phone rings and you lift your sleeve and push a tattooed button on your forearm. Next thing you know there is a digital video of the caller, moving in full video on your arm. After you hang up the tattoo completely fades away to leave nothing but your bare skin.

The Digital Tattoo Interface is a Bluetooth device that is inserted into the skin via a small incision. After inserted as a tube, it unrolls as a flat silicon base. It rests between skin and muscle. Glucose and oxygen in your blood fuel the implant via an attached artery and vein.

A special tattoo on the surface of your skin would interact with the field created by the device. Touching it through your skin would make it react similar to a touch screen display. Implications are limitless. Telephones, TV, the Web and just about everything else we rely on could be literally embedded in your skin.

Always on and ready, it stays out of sight until you need it to function. Well, that is unless you have a screen saver of your favorite tattoo’s running during the day. Cross your fingers with me and we might be able to get our hands on this concept sooner rather than later.

Unmanned gliders are using only the thermal power of the sea to carry on tasks that last months. Sounds a bit like science fiction, but rest assured, it’s real.

A joint team from the University of the Virgin Islands and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution launched an underwater vehicle in December of 2007. Uninterrupted all this time, it has traversed along the Virgin Island Basin 20 times, sometimes at depths reaching 2.5 miles deep.

Unlike conventional gliders that rely on batteries and pumps, the thermal glider responds to the differentials in ocean temperature. Tubes made of wax expand into mechanical energy, causing the craft to go buoyant. Those tubes later cool at depths, starting the cycle all over again.

The team has a working prototype that will be able to propel itself with unlimited green energy. They plan to use the design for missions that will take upwards of six months. They are agile, unmanned and can be set to do tasks such as gather salinity, topography, monitor biological activity and acoustic readings.

Everyone on the team is eager to launch more of the crafts in the North Atlantic. Data from the region will shed more light on the response the ocean has had to climate change.

You may just want to keep your eye out for one on your next SCUBA trip to Bermuda. Smile and nod, just don’t try to out swim it.