When I shop for fancy cheeses online, I always feel like I'm missing out on something by not being able to take a deep, hearty whiff of that cave-aged sheep's milk blue I'm considering. Fortunately for me, engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have developed a way for smells to be transmitted over the Internet. By using 15 chemical-sensing microchips to analyze a scent, the device can then reproduce it using a combination of 96 different chemicals to ensure the most accurate recreation possible of your dairy products. Since this is still just a concept, there are no products slated to utilize the technology at the moment, but all signs point to that changing in the future sometime. Just imagine the scents you'll be able to send your dorm-mates from across the country. The future's so bright I gotta wear shades… — Adam Frucci

New Scientist, via We Make Money Not Art