Taste Over IP (Taste/IP) is a new methodology (framework) for integrating the sensation of taste with the existing digital communication domain. Taste/IP has three core modules: the transmitter, form of communication, and receiver. The transmitter is an AndroidTM mobile application, where the sender formulates a taste message to send. At present, we are conducting research on transferring basic taste sensations known as sour, salty, bitter, and sweet.

Then, for communication, we present a new extensible markup language (XML) format, the TasteXML (TXML) to specify the format of taste messages. TasteXML is a Remote Procedure Calling protocol that works over the Internet. TasteXML messages are set of encrypted requests and responses. The body of both request and response are in XML format. As the receiver (actuator), we use the Digital Taste Interface, a novel method for stimulating taste sensations on human.

We believe, in the future, this technology may use to implement digital taste sharing platforms and social networking services.

Advisory Committee: Prof. Adrian David Cheok, Prof. Ryohei Nakatsu

Publications

N. Ranasinghe, A. D. Cheok, and R. Nakatsu, “Taste/IP: The Sensation of Taste for Digital Communication,” In Proceedings of the 14th ACM International Conference on Multimodal Interaction, ICMI 2012, pp. 409-416, Oct 2012, ISBN: 978-1-4503-1467-1