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The future has arrived…and to be honest, I’m not sure how to feel about it.

According to Reuters, one Japanese professor has come up with a prototype for a lickable TV screen. Yes, you read that correctly. It would be a TV screen that you can lick in order to taste different flavors.

Photo: Pexels/Lisa

For now, it has been christened “Taste the TV.” The whole point is that it is a screen that can imitate food flavors.

It manages this by employing a “carousel of 10 flavor canisters that spray in combination” in order to mimic the taste of real food, as explained by Reuters. The spray sample is then placed onto a “hygienic film” which is on a flat TV screen so that the viewer can taste it.

Meiji University professor, Homei Miyashita, was inspired by the pandemic, citing that he wanted to come up with new ways for people to connect with one another in a technological setting.

As he explained to Reuters, “The goal is to make it possible for people to have the experience of something like eating at a restaurant on the other side of the world, even while staying at home.”

Miyashita explained to the news outlet that if this idea were to go into production, it would cost roughly ¥100,000 JPY, or $875 USD, to create. This isn’t Miyashita’s first rodeo with taste. He was also instrumental in helping to come up with a fork that makes food taste richer.

Photo: flickr/Max Braun

As for his TV screen that you can lick, Miyashita is hoping that he will be able to create a downloadable platform of flavors from all over the globe that can be readily shared with the world.

Guess we can’t argue that the last two years have been particularly rough for socialization in person, and most of our interactions have been from the confines of our homes. But I’m still not convinced by this potential invention. What do you think of the lickable TV screen? Would you ever try this? Let us know!