Japan invents a device that helps you eat food

If you've ever craved saliva when you see the well-prepared food on Instagram, do you wonder if they taste? A new technology can provide answers.

Researchers in Tokyo are developing a method to increase the experience of "virtual" foods by using electrodes to stimulate the mouth and tongue.

This approach can help experience virtual reality more impressively, allowing users to "taste" food through cyberspace.

With the introduction of a range of virtual reality audiovisual devices that are making this technology more accessible, developers are racing to meet the needs, with all the content from the footage. Virtual art to shooters.

Another group is studying to expand the virtual feeling associated with sweetness.

But developing virtual food is still a challenge, with taste, smell, and even touch when your mouth touches food is important to experience.

Earlier this year, a research team in Tokyo revealed a prototype of an electric fork that gives off a slightly stimulating sensation on the tongue, stimulating taste receptors to increase salty taste.

Currently, another group is studying to expand the virtual feeling associated with sweetness.

Presented at ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium in Tokyo last month, Nimesha Ranasinghe and Yi-Luen Do of Singapore National University introduced a model that can stimulate sweetness.

Using a 9V battery, the device stimulates the virtual sweetness of the group using a four-element line system, which creates a temperature change of 5 ° C in seconds.

When exposed to the tip of the tongue, the result of temperature changes makes you feel sweet (virtual).

While initial successes were promising, reports showed that a small trial of more than 15 people only had a slight sweet taste.

A prototype of this device integrated into a spoon is currently being developed, with trials beginning in 2017, this model may lead to the development of virtual flavor stimulation technology. Useful for dieters.

Dr Ranashinghe told MailOnline: "We believe that this will be especially useful for people with limited diets, such as eating less salt or less sugar."

Creating the virtual taste of sweet and salty is a significant step forward, but if you can't feel food physically, the experience will have no meaning in virtual reality.

A team from the University of Tokyo is looking for ways to bring a bite, by using a series of electrodes to stimulate the jaw muscles.

Presented at the conference, Arinobu Niijima and Takefumi Ogawa revealed that the results of a small experiment involving muscle stimulation (EMS) made people move jaw muscles like chewing motions.

Use electrical impulses to stimulate the jaw muscles, forming chewing motions.

By providing short pulses of 100 to 250 Hz, they were able to stimulate the jaw muscles, used to chew food.

The duo added: "In the future, we will propose applications such as a virtual dinner experience and increase dining experiences."

Maybe creating virtual food and eating experiences is a shortcut, but expanding the sensory stimulation to the eyes and ears is a great starting point for other ideas.