Its reaction with the odour molecules changes a detector's electrical resistance, and this signal is fed into a neural net (the closest that computertechnology has got to imitating the pattern-recognising abilities of networks of nerve cells) to work out what is being smelt.
TiVo and Replay Networks "offer a really logical progression to convergence because they take a lot of computertechnology and apply it to television in a manner that is very easy for the consumer to understand, " Baker said.
When Microsoft recognized a booming need for IT support to service the networks it powered, it stepped up its giving to US community college programs that offered computertechnology degrees.