Simulator offers a taste of what the internet may have in store for users

The internet is a perfect tool for allowing us to see and hear things happening at locations where we're not physically present. It's not so good, however, at doing the same thing with taste. We can't taste things without physically putting flavours into our mouths - until now.

Researchers at the Keio-NUS CUTE Centre at the National University of Singapore have come up with a simulator that tricks the brain into thinking it has experienced a taste. The centre is part of a collaboration between NUS and Japan's Keio University that looks into possible futuristic everyday applications of interactive media.

"We can control audio and video very well at the moment," says Nimesha Ranasinghe, who led the research, which started out as his PhD project. "But we can't do the same with taste, which is an equally important sense, and it's undermining digital interaction."

To use the simulator, called a Digital Taste Interface, two electrodes are attached to their tongue of the user, one on top and the other underneath.

A combination of electrical and thermal stimulation can recreate the primary tastes - sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami - plus a few more complex variations like minty.

Changes to electrical current, frequency and polarity result in changes to the taste experienced by the user. The tastes delivered to users can be controlled over the internet using a taste-over-internet protocol developed by the team.