The Lickable TV Is Here: Taste The TV Prototype Offers Multi-Sensory Experience

It’s nowhere close to the food replicator in Star Trek or the Foodarackacycle in The Jetsons, but it does mark the next step in technology, according to Homei Miyashita, the professor at the Meiji University in Tokyo who invented it. The idea for the TTTV came about with the international health crisis in 2020 and the initial wave of lockdowns and restrictions it led to, The Guardian reports.

Technology has been an important aide during the past couple of years, helping us connect to people and experiences remotely and thus stay safe indoors. The one thing technology hasn’t been able to do, Miyashita says, is help us sample the foods of our favorite restaurants that shuttered during the lockdown.

So, he created this smart TV that contains a 10-canister carousel holding flavors. As one of Miyashita’s students demonstrates in the video below, you ask the TTTV for the food you’d like to taste, and it creates a sprayable sample on a hygienic film that rolls over the screen. Naturally, no one would want to lick the same screen as others, so the film is removed after each use.

“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,” the professor explains. He hopes for the commercialization of the TTTV and estimates it would cost about $875 to bring it to series production.

As for how it might be used, aside from private sampling, he says potential applications would be distance learning for sommeliers, cooks, or tasting games and quizzes. As per the aforementioned media outlet, Miyashita is also considering expanding the use of the spraying technology he developed for the TTTV to devices that would apply pizza or chocolate flavor to slices of bread. At least, in this case, you’d be eating something.