Soon, touch houseplants to change your TV channel

Washington, August 11 (ANI): Scientists have unveiled an emerging technology that lets users control electronic devices by touching their plants in different ways.

Dubbed "Botanicus Interacticus", the system is the brainchild of a group of digital media experts led by Ivan Poupyrev, a senior research scientist at Disney Research in Pittsburgh, Discovery News reported.

Poupyrev and his colleagues were seeking new ways to interact with plants, and even give them a voice.

Botanicus Interacticus isn't a regular touchscreen interface, though. An electrode connected to a special wire is placed in the soil and runs along the plant.

This allows precise gestures to be detected and then mapped on a computer.

According to the researchers, this won't harm the plant, especially not a fake one.

The setup comes from technology created at Disney Research that can detect touch and gestures with any conductive material, according to research producer Jason Hintz Llopis.

The wire running along the plant uses a technique called Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing so the plant can recognize more complex gestures like hand sliding and varying amounts of pressure.

The system was unveiled at the SIGGRAPH conference in Los Angeles this week. (ANI)