Botanicalls: primitive stage in sensor revolution

Posted by: Stephen Baker on February 26

What a chore to wire a plant so that it Twitters when thirsty. I clicked through the Botanicalls page, and the step-by-step looks like something from Popular Mechanics, circa 1969. It’s still impressive, though. And it represents an early stage of the sensor revolution that is going to be automating much of our lives over the next decade or two.

That reminds me. I was talking to Luis von Ahn, a fast-rising comp sci professor at Carnegie Mellon. We were talking about the day when prudent and sober cars will drive themselves. He predicts that kids will get in trouble for “hacking” the automatic controls so that they can drive. In this world, exerting personal control over the steering wheel and the accelerator will be wild behavior. That’s what he thinks, anyway.

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