Have you ever wanted to taste the food you see on cooking shows? A professor in Japan has brought that technology a step closer. Professor Homei Miyashita made a prototype TV screen that you can lick. It is called TTTV, which means "Taste the TV". Professor Miyashita said it could become "taste-a-vision". If he created a screen that smells, we could also have "smell-a-vision". Miyashita wanted to create a screen we can use with more senses. He hopes the technology can move on from just having pictures and sound, to screens on which we can use our sense of taste too.

Professor Miyashita said his screen copies food flavours. It works like an inkjet printer. Instead of ink cartridges, TTTV uses 10 different flavour cartridges. These spray a combination of flavours onto a hygienic film on the TV screen. The TV viewer can lick this to sample the taste. The professor said: "The goal is to make it possible for people to have the experience of something like eating at a restaurant on the other side of the world, even while staying at home." One of his students said a chocolate she saw on the screen tasted like a sweet chocolate sauce. TTTV could cost about $870.