A Japanese firm recently showed off their smelling device by the name of iSmell which can be attached to an iPhone and scents can be sent to your friends. Apparently it can also provide the ambiance giving an immersive feel when playing a game or listening to music.
That sounds really cool but from what I have read and seen it looks as though you need to carry different scents around to deploy the one you want for different situations. Like the scent of gunpoder (iSmells chosen scent of advertisement), if you want to play a first person shooter.
Is Smelling Device the next big accessory?
So the device cannot capture scents from the surrounding and then replicate it yet. Which would be astonishingly great as you could capture the scent of the pudding your ma makes or scent of your partner to store away for times when you are far apart. This is understandable as the technology is fairly new and only at its exploration phase.
The day should not be far though when you can really interact with it. For the time being you need to carry those bottles of farts and roses along with you. A very exciting prospect for the future nevertheless. One more step towards making technology more human I guess.