Olly makes your retweets smell like spearmint

The Foundry — a skunkworks-like division of London-based ad agency Mint Digital — has created the Olly. It’s a tiny white box connected by USB, which translates any notifications from your social networks into any scent you like — be it Facebook comments smelling like bacon or messages from your better half causing her perfume to be released. The unit’s powered by an Arduino motherboard, with a tiny atomiser that’s triggered when software running on your computer receives a notification. You can also stack multiple scent trays on top of one base unit, letting the Olly react to different notifications.

Although it was shown as a concept back in early November, you can now back the project on Kickstarter. It’s only been running for a few days, but its already reached $3,910 of its $35,000 goal, with 28 days still to go. $50 will net you the final product, while $75 gets you a base station and additional scent tray, and 20 people willing to donate $150 will receive a 3D-printed prototype with a custom face design. If you’re more DIY-oriented, the product’s website promises that instructions on how to build your own Olly are on the way — the perfect project for your Printrbot.