Disney’s Botanicus Interacticus
Aside from the fake latin-like words, this looks like an interesting idea. Wired.com has an article complete with nifty video demonstrating the simple device.
Of course, watching them generating music by touching the house plants spurs all kinds of thoughts.
Bourne would love it. Wire the shrubs out front of the house. Let the computer figure out if an intruder is the local dog, cat, mouse, bird — or goblin. Heck, wire the lawn (shades of Princess Diaries shouting, “Get off the lawn!”)
Hitch the shrub-watch to lights, sprinklers, and maybe a voice recognition system. Gives you five seconds after the lights come on to shout, “Honey, I’m home!” (or some other catchy phrase) to disable the goblin-detector before it escalates to the sprinklers. Or the twenty second delay before turning loose the crocodiles in the moat, or calling the security company, whatever.
Wire the front yard to tell if the neighbor’s pooch “does his business” on your yard. Or if rain falls. Or if the sprinklers aren’t sprinkling at the expected times, or shutting off when expected.
Heaven forbid we should wire the garden and yard so the computer can tell us we forgot to water the tomatoes and shrubs.
Permaculture aficionados can let the plants tell them what techniques “don’t work.”
And, of course, we can now let the wild wind create stirring rhapsodies and arpeggios of joy, and thundering, majestic sweeps of emotion (kinda like whale songs?) by wiring the dandelions and cypress.
Botanicus Interacticus. It’s not just for houseplants anymore.
Tags: Botanicus Interacticus, Disney, plants, security