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Taste+

Overview

Experience digitally augmented taste sensations.

Background

As society becomes more health conscious, people seek to replace unhealthy beverages with healthier ones. On the other hand, some elderly lose sensitivity to their taste buds as they age, resulting in them finding foods bland and possibly using more condiments to attain the same taste. Both scenarios present interesting use cases toward augmenting perceived tastes for the purposes of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Objective

Taste+ aims to promote a healthier lifestyle by replacing or reducing the amount of condiments used in our daily consumption.

Solution

Several everyday utensils (spoon, bottle, chopsticks, soup bowl) are created with silver electrodes attached. Weak and controlled electrical pulses of varied frequency and amplitude are sent to the tip of the tongue to simulate primary taste sensations (salty, sour, bitter) with corresponding colors (blue, green, red). Dials or buttons on these utensils allow users to quickly toggle between these simulated tastes.