Well, never let it be said that we aren't looking out for new technology! Smelly Vision (our name again) may be coming to a general session near you, but not for a while.

A company named Digiscents is refining the technology of manufacturing synthetic proteins and using a computer interface to activate them. By combining various synthesized proteins, Digiscents is claiming they are able to produce over 2 million different scents. The scents are plugged into a computer via a "real player" sort of interface and a humidifier sort of hardware, and, "voila", we can put scents in the air to increase olfactory stimulation during General Sessions (whew).

Imagine sitting in a room, watching a video on the big screen of a skier zipping through pine trees, when all the sudden you get a whiff of pine needles!

But then that brings up all sorts of issues about sales managers wanting to import various bathroom smells into a meeting after a stinky year of sales.

Anyway, we like the idea, but Digiscents is

more interested in the personal market initially. They are looking for hardware partners later this year to develop industrial sized applications. Be sure to check back for developments.

HDTV is going mobile (and affordable)! This summer Apple and Pinnacle are introducing the first affordable HDTV digital video editing suite.

The Mac G4 is teamed up with a Pinnacle capture card to create and edit HDTV format digital video which offers twice the resolution of normal video with no compression.

That means much higher quality video on general session screens, plasma screens and HDTV screens that should really impress the viewers.

Mobile HDTV editing and production is a great new tool to be used for general session production. We look forward to implementing it later this year.

Next month in tech talk: plasma screens, streaming video, and full animations that can be played right out of your PowerPoint program!