DigiScents plans to bring aromas to the online world.

If you think the Internet is in your face already, you haven_t smelled anything yet. In a high-tech twist on the old "scratch-and-sniff" concept, a new company announced plans to bring smells to the Internet with "scent" software and a plug-in device that buffets Web surfers with "Smell-O-Vision." In an era when the Internet increasingly dominates the sights and sounds of entertainment, can smell be far behind? Not according to the founders of DigiScents, Inc. "If we can find out the essence of a biological smell and make a profile of that smell, we should be able to digitize it and broadcast it," DigiScents President Dexster Smith said. "We really feel we are in the ground floor of a new industry and art form. It is going to span a number of areas, entertainment, e-commerce, advertising and education." Think this has the slight reek of a hoax about it? Well, guess again. Smith and his partner, Joel Bellenson, are proven high-tech entrepreneurs, having founded Pangea Systems Inc., an industry leader in providing software and technology to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Their new venture also has earned the ultimate kudos for California_s computer digerati - a scratch-and-sniff cover story in the coming issue of Wired magazine. "If this technology takes off, it_s gonna launch the next Web revolution," Wired raved about the new product. Smith said the pair got the idea of wiring the Internet for smell during a vacation in Miami_s vibrant South Beach. "We were overwhelmed by the perfumes that people were wearing, all the sensory input," Smith said. "We thought: This is a biological phenomenon, this is in our domain. We should be able to understand this and build a company out of it." They quickly got building and soon the Oakland, Calif.-based DigiScents had the concept down. First, there is the "iSmell," a plug-in computer accessory that will contain a basic palette of scented oils from which a bouquet of different smells can be created. Functioning like the MP3 players that download music from the Internet, the iSmell will take its orders from DigiScents "ScentStream" software, which will translate online digital cues for different smells into specific orders for the portable perfume factory. To ensure odor authenticity, DigiScents has created a "Scent Registry," a digital index of thousands of scents that the company will license to developers to integrate into games, Web sites, advertisements, movies and music.