Sniffing out the next big thing

Matthew du Plessis: The people who make televisions have been drinking the cough syrup again. And not the delicious but placebo-riffic minty cough syrup that contains only trace elements of anything even vaguely pharmacological.

We're talking the nasty old-fashioned stuff that oozes up into your brain and melts it into a sort of grey goop. An instant zombie smoothie, if you like.

The people who make televisions, who have been at the cough syrup, want to sell you a 3D-TV.

Everybody who wants and can afford a flatscreen LCD television already has at least one, but the market has shown that as long as you keep adding new features to your screens, people will continue to upgrade - and, because they cost so little to make yet consumers are prepared to pay top dollar for the latest set, the people who make televisions are drunk on their profits - and, clearly, cough syrup - and so they are desperate to keep making and to keep selling.

But, alas, they have run out of sensible things to do with televisions. Oh, they have made them bigger, sure. And they have made them thinner, energy efficient, high definition, higher definition. PCs and smartphones now sync effortlessly with the latest models, and even touch screens are appearing.

All of these have been entirely sensible and desirable upgrades, and they have evolved naturally, casually and smoothly in step with the ever-onward march of progress that is the 21st century home entertainment experience.

But sense has deserted the cough-syrup drinking, profit-drunk people who make televisions. They want - no, expect! - us to join them in their insensibility. They want us to put on (in some cases, quite literally rose-tinted) goggles and watch 3D-TV in our own homes.

Of all the outrageous, eccentric, bizarre routes they could have taken, 3D is the one they chose?

I must confess, this has taken me completely by surprise. My money -- and my reputation as a prognosticator of international renown - was not on 3D at all. My money was on Smell-o-Vision.

I was convinced that 2010 was going to be the year when the ol' factory television set finally made way for olfactory television sets, and had primed my confidantes to expect nothing less than a glut of scent-tastic screenery at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

In fact, I was so sure that the annual gadget trade show, at which trends are set and fortunes made and lost, would be so over-run with Smell-o-Visions that I opted to experience it vicariously, through Twittering agents and Gizmodic blog posts, lest my nose explode from over-exposure.

I was particularly curious about how Smell-O-Vision pioneers had cracked the problem of what happened to a carefully crafted palette of narrative fragrances when you hit the fast-forward button, but as it turns out I need not have worried: by all accounts the only olfactory danger was from nervous "booth babes" whose heavily applied perfume overcompensated for the natural aromas of such events: the tart tickle of moulded plastic and faux chrome, and the lingering bubblewrappy afterscent of freshly-laundered geek.

So, instead, three dee.

I'm not convinced these are going to catch on; if only because most consumers have so much catching up to do. Surely the most logical next step for the likes of Samsung, Sony, LG and Philips is to create new customers by significantly lowering the prices of existing TVs and clearing stock? But I suppose if the Smell-O-Vision isn't ready, they needed to have something - anything, really - to offer to their loyal and persistently ephemeristic early adopters.

But perhaps I'm being too short-sighted. Maybe Avatar, Jimmy Cameron's smurftastic Ferngully remake, really has changed the majority perception of 3D. I've been away from the metropolis, though, far away from the nearest 3D Imax experience, so I couldn't say for sure. And, it must be said, I've never watched anything on a 3D-TV. And as my spectacular prescient #FAIL regarding Smell-O-Vision plainly shows, I've been wrong before.

So perhaps 3D television is just one of those things that you have to experience for yourself to understand the appeal and ignite the spark of #WANT. Like sushi. But my money's still on cough syrup.