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)."

"Repayable"?

[jeffb (2.718)]

Can I get a potted plant to serve as an editor?

Or has this already happened?

Re:Botanical abuse

[durrr]

I'm growing a pair of melons and I intend to be very gentle with how I touch them.

Re:Botanical abuse

[ozmanjusri]

Melons are fine, but whatever you do, don't grow touch-sensitive Apples.

You'll be sued into oblivion.

No thanks Disney.

[Xest]

All my houseplants are Cacti.

Trolling the "meat is murder" crowd :)

[KillaBeave]

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!

Security applications

[afeeney]

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.