Amazon's Alexa Voice Service, which the company describes as "always getting smarter and adding new features and skills," will make a dramatic sensory leap next year with the recent acquisition of Scentee, a Japanese company that markets a "groundbreaking olfactory device" called Balloon, which attaches to the headphone jack of a smartphone and sprays scents-on-demand, including strawberry and coffee. According to industry sources, Amazon plans use Scentee's technology to create "virtual aromatherapy immersion" for Amazon Echo. This will enable the device to "fill a room with immersive, 360º omni-directional scent." A spokesman for Amazon declined to comment. --Robert Gray
