What does this photograph smell like?

Think about a vivid memory you have stored away. There is a strong likelihood that you have a fuzzy mental picture of it, a sense of the time, the place, the emotion. And perhaps also a scent. A whiff of sunscreen that takes you back on holiday. Nana’s camphor mothballs. Petrichor or the smell of rain. Petrol. Your jumper the morning after sitting around a camp fire. The smell of tobacco that puts you on your grandfather's lap. Scents are strongly tied to coding of memory.

Would it be amazing if you could create scents from photographs?

Glad you asked. Because the boffins at MIT had that thought too and had built a prototype that does just that. Developed by Cyrus Clarke, the Anemoia Device is a speculative prototype that translates photographs into bespoke fragrances. Memory coded.