Disney Turns Plants Into Multi-Touch Sensors
SchrodingerZ writes "Designers of Disney Research in Pittsburgh Pa, have turned the average household plant into a musical device and remote control. Called the Botanicus Interacticus project, this new program can turn any household plant into touch-sensitive computer system. 'The system is built upon capacitive touch sensing — the principle used on touchscreens in smartphones and tablets — but instead of sensing electrical signals at a single frequency, it monitors capacitive signals across a broad range of frequencies. It's called Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing.' This works by putting a pulsating electrode into the soil around a plant, which excites the plant, making any touch to the parts of the plant a replayable signal. This could mean soon swatting at your household plant could change the television channel or turn up the volume (PDF)."
While an interesting development, I don't believe the average plant would thrive with the abuse of a std remote control usage.
Can I get a potted plant to serve as an editor?
Or has this already happened?
Combine this with a sensitive plant and you can have a lot of fun!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
That poor plant!
oh thats fuzzy
> "This works by putting a pulsating electrode into the soil
> around a plant, which excites the plant, making any touch
> to the parts of the plant a repayable signal."
Finally, nerds whose inability to get the girl has led to a useful perversion.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
This was covered on Slashdot back in May as the Touché which turns any surface into a multi-touch surface. I'm wondering what made the hype return three months later with plants. It's cool that you can use this on plants, but why plants when you can do anything else that exists in an office environment. After all, plants need watering. Why not just use plastic plants? Or, are we all that much more interested in creating a visible emotional bond with our house plants?
Side question, does it work on Robert Plant?
Silence is a state of mime.
Could there be a more convenient or better evolution of the modern day remote? I thought that my smart phone or tablet would be the remote killer of the future. Looks like I was way wrong! Who would have thought I could potentially use a potted plant to control my TV. No longer will I have to worry about where I left the remote nor will I have to concern myself with broken battery flaps on the back of the remote. Now... which leaf is the pause button?
All my houseplants are Cacti.
This could mean soon swatting at your household plant could change the television channel or turn up the volume."
Or just swat a woman to have her get up and change the channel for you.
What, too soon?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
And what happens when that plant realizes it's power over the remote? Good-bye Superbowl, hello Garden Channel.
The article states it is written August 13th, 2012, but in point of fact this article should have been published April 1st.
I want to take one of these setups to an organic orchard and program it to shriek in agony when someone picks the fruit. That should give those vegetarian hippies something to think about!
A touch-sensitive plant could be used for home or business security. It could be trained to sense contact at a certain threshold of pressure (e.g., a human footstep versus a breeze or a small animal) and summon support appropriately. Add some solar-powered electricity (or a gene splice with an electric eel) and it could zap the intruder.
Of course, there's only one thing they could call this application of the principle.
Robocrop.
I'm not growing the marijuana for recreational purposes, it's part of my computer. I choose the mighty cannabis because it's a hardy stock that can grow most anywhere and of course, it helps me sleep.
Be seeing you...
Reminds me of The Secret Life of Plants, a very interesting book that has been generally dismissed as quackery. I wonder if any of it will ever be redeemed through future discoveries.
And to all who laughed at the part of the video where the guy touches the cactus; me too!
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
I, for one, welcome our new botanical overlords.
I don't think I want my plants to be "excited".
tactile feedback is a good thing, right?
A touch sensitive plant sure seems like something that would be at home on Pandora, conveniently Disney is adding a new Avatar-land at their Animal Kingdom park.
I didnt look too closely because it was crowded. There were a half dozen strange haptic (touch sensing/feedback) at SIGGRAPH.
literally prior _art_: http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/werke/TheInteractivePlantGrowing
That would be a wonderfully mean practical joke to play on someone.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Can my wife also become my remote control? It's a win win, I get an easily accessible remote, she gets the tender love and care she's always wanted.
They should make it scream in pain every time you touch it
This is so technomage. I bet it has significant security implications though, imagine if your lawn or trees in a forest could be used as a tripwire system. Could it be detected, up close or at a distance?
In Soviet Russia, plant touches you!
Silence is a state of mime.
Zzzzzzzzzz..... I saw this remote control plant concept done by my cousin something akin to 15-20 years ago.... nothing novel there at all, he used it for electricity control...
Still fun and qute - but nothing ground breaking new
Just imagine the characters - Hotty Peppers, Cheery Tomatoes, Crabby Grass... Endless possibilities!
"Honey, did you just switch the TV channel on me or is that damn cat peeing on the rhododendron again?" Enjoy.
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway This is the road to hell
I wonder if people could wear these in order to keep a record of any inappropriate contact at certain conferences. ;) If it works on plants, it should work on people, no?
This is the single most useless piece of technology in the history of existence. EVER. Forever. More useless than a pet rock... rocks are at least camp-chic these days.
It is what it is.
Apple is now suing them because Apple invented music... and plants.
I remember seeing in Tokyo something like this.. exactly 20 years ago!
I see it is also the first reference in the Siggraph 2012 paper.
At that time it was IIRC using a Silicon Graphics graphical supercomputer.. 16-way at the time? I don't remember.
I was told that potted plants were wired to the computer so they became antenna and I remember it would work even without touching the plant. Some plants did better with different people. The right stroking would cause 3d graphics of plants built in real time using natural growth algorithms.
Christa and Laurent also were at NTT's ATR lab in Kyoto for some time and I think they got a patent on something.
Interactive Plant Growing an interactive computer installation.
The installation was beautiful and intriguing.
(c) 1992, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau
in permanent collection of the ZKM Media Museum, Karlsruhe
http://www.interface.ufg.ac.at/christa-laurent/WORKS
It would be cool if you can actually address different parts of the plant that react differently to different frequencies, though this isn't shown in the paper really, I guess it is in the demo. I don't know about enjoying touching a cactus more than a fern though! IIRC pines worked well but I don't remember exactly. Anyway, if you use more robust plants they will last longer. It was very memorable and I have a feeling there is a future in it for therapy, not mapping gestures. Although if you could make a musical instrument from a vegetable with some silver ink and play it, that would be cool. Any takers?
Sound exactly like the Plantes Parlantes project (2010) by artists Gilberto Esparza and RE-X. They turned plants into audio generators using circuits like Drawdio.
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwO5YJAMPZ0
(not to mention this awesome project by artist Sander Veenhof who created a touchscreen interface designed for plants: http://www.sndrv.nl/DIYplant/index.php?page=documentation)
So when Muffins or Sparky decide to play with / shred the plants, what will the tv do...
I know it's not exactly the same, but the first thing that came to mind was ch'hala trees from the Star Wars novel "The Last Command" (specifically, the "making any touch to the parts of the plant a replayable signal"). Of course, "touch" is different from air movements, but should that "minor" detail be worked out, just hook up something to broadcast those signals and instant spies! ;-)
I love inventors!
The plant was asked to comment on this technology, and all it said was: "Oh no, not again."
I speculate that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that, we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.
This would bring new meaning to the phrase, "My remote died."
It seems like most corporate and government spaces have plants. If all of them become sensory inputs to the establishment's electronic monitoring system...
I see some intriguing possibilities here. Just being in the same room as the plant will likely be enough to register you.
How will that affect the calibration? I can imagine that bamboo would need to be calibrated annoyingly often.
Do dead parts work? (I'm not very kood at keeping indoor plants alive.)