Disney Turns Plants Into Musical Device and Remote Control

Disney Research is known for some very innovative and extra-ordinary ideas. Now the researchers at the facility has been able to come up with a very interesting notion – a new technology that can turn any plant in a household into a multi-touch sensor and a remote control.


Botanicus Interacticus

The idea behind this technology is the same as that used in touchscreens in smartphones and tablets – the system detects and understands capacitive touch sensing. However, in typical touchscreens, touch sensing is limited to a single frequency. In this case, Disney Researchers have tweaked the technology so that it can discern multiple capacitive signals across a wide range of frequencies.

All you have to do is plunge an electrode in the soil next to the plant and map gestures onto the plants. These mapped gestures can then be used to issue commands and get the plant to have things done. The sensing technology is being called “Botanicus Interacticus.” According to the team that has come up with this technology, “From the point of view of our sensor, there would be no difference between real and artificial plants.”

Imagine using the plant in your household to play music, control the volume of your stereo or simply surf through TV channels. It is definitely a very cool idea indeed and can find many other applications in other fields in the future. Watch the video below to get a glimpse of this technology.


Source: Disney Research

Courtesy: Future of Tech

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Salman

Salman Latif is a software engineer with a specific interest in social media, big data and real-world solutions using the two.Other than that, he is a bit of a gypsy. He also writes in his own blog. You can find him on Google+ and Twitter .

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