At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, Google CEO Eric Schmidt wowed delegates during his keynote presentation, as a German menu was scanned by an Android phones camera, and within seconds, an English translation of the meal in question appeared on the screen. Now, if rumours are to be believed, Google has come up with something even spookier.
Unconfirmed reports are reaching Mobile Marketing that scientists at Google are close to finalizing the technology to enable an aroma to be encoded within a mathematical algorithm and sent to a mobile phone as part of a marketing message.
The technique, which Google is calling Message Scent, involves something known as trapdoor cipher technology. Developed in the mid-1970s by number theorists Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, its primary use is as a cryptographic protocol that enables two parties with no prior knowledge of each other to jointly establish a secret key. The trapdoor tag comes from the fact that, like a trapdoor, its easy to fall through, but almost impossible to get out of (or unravel the code), unless you have a ladder; in this case, the ladder being the identity of the two huge prime numbers usually each of 100 digits or more – that are multiplied together to form the basis of the cipher.
Until recently, trapdoor ciphers were only capable of being encoded and decoded on a powerful computer, but as mobile phone processors become ever more sophisticated, Google believes it will be able to encode an aroma for decoding on a mobile phone by the end of the year. If so, the Internet giant is likely to have brands beating a path to its door to use the technology.
Retail strategy consultant Simon Tinker says brands would be justified in being excited about the idea. “We all know about the power of aroma as a marketing tool, he says. Look at the way that supermarkets use the wonderful smell of freshly-baked bread to welcome people into their stores. The idea of packaging up an aroma and sending it as a marketing message to a mobile phone will have coffee chains, perfume companies and wine retailers chomping at the bit. This could be the killer app that mobile marketing has been waiting for.”
No-one at Google was available for comment. Well bring you more news as we have it.