Technology, as storied author Ursula K. Le Guin noted in a prescient 2005 post, is not limited to high-tech hardware but also encompasses the likes of paper, furniture, medicine, and much more. I would go further and argue that some outwardly high-tech hardware should not be classified as technology, and I will now point any naysayers to the GameScent Automated Gaming Scent Atomizer, a $180 AI-powered box that will fart out smells designed to match whatever game you're currently playing.
This startlingly real, buyable, completely serious product cropped up in the past few months, with GameScent's Twitter hawking "the gaming revolution" since November 2023. The revolutionary fart box is now available on the likes of Amazon (for the low price of $150 thanks to a discount) and Best Buy, with sales banners proclaiming it to be "the biggest revolution in gaming in decades." That would put it above several generations of consoles, countless PC hardware upgrades, modern engines like Unreal 5, and too many other innovations to list – a bold claim for a box of AI farts.
