Gadgetory

we're in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University renowned worldwide as a robotics and technology hub there's a building on CMU's campus where they rent out space to some of the largest and most influential technology companies in the world Intel has based their applehead space there and so does Disney Disney research Pittsburgh is where they experiment with technology that can be used in movies and in exhibits and at theme parks most of what they do at Disney research in Pittsburgh is top-secret but they've been pretty open about something called Botanica interact-as's which is a plant embedded with sensors that can make music we were curious about the tanyka Center activists so we invited our friends from the band Cloud Nothings to see if they could turn this experiment into an actual viable instrument so this research piece book research laboratory and we are part of the Walt Disney Company we invent technologies so the foundation of the botanicals Antarctica's project is what swept frequency capacitive sensing that we invented here in this research which allows to make almost everything humans plants objects water are in our tables anything interactive touch sensitive touching gesture interactive with a single wire all you do is to plug wire to something and this becomes interactive right so the Batangas Instructables is part of the longer project which we're doing which is creating technologies which allow us to add interactivity to the world the physical environment on a very large scale right we all used to using mobile phones and tablets and computers but it's always you know it's in your hand or it's either in the table or in the lab how can we make the entire world touched and safe how can we turn the entire world into the computer right that's kind of long-term vision where that I've been working on for a few years we have to use existing infrastructure existing world and add interactivity ad hoc I see my goal was providing ingredients by creating the basic ingredients which are not available before and then I giving these ingredients to creators like this one I think felt like different because this one like as you go down this one or that one is you get closer from the like flamingo guitar I would try to like control it and play one note but I think like sometimes even just by moving a little bit closer to it it would change the notes even if your hand is in the same place so it has less to do with where you're touching it and more where you are in relation to it as you touch it like just kind of like keeps changing I am an experimental electronic musician and I spend most of my time playing keyboards and synthesizers and working with computers when you use a computer a synthesizer or something like that you usually have more control over the parameters and the way that things turn out and the plants sort of give you a bit of unpredictability being that it's controlling the sound which is a lot more unusual but also really kind of a unique and sort of special compared to other things that I've played before and it's definitely different wasn't like playing the drums if there were ways to evolve some of the parameters in which you control the plant so you have more control over the notes that are being played how fast they're being played and at which rate they're being played and stuff like that I think it'd be easier to use as an instrument but right now it seems that it's still like a prototype do be a little more accurate with it yeah it's actually kind of similar to a the way a theremin works which is an old electronic instrument the tracks pitch depending on where your hand is when the theremin first came out it was more of just like a novelty thing and then their musicians like Clara Rockmore who got really good at playing the theremin and ended up playing classical pieces on them and sort of turning it into a really unique thing so depends on what somebody does with it I guess I mean they could remain how it is and be very primitive but then you never know if somebody's going to come along and master it and become the master plant conductor I would take a lot of practice maybe I got the plan I think there are two kind of approaches to research in Germany one approach is we have a problem when you're trying to solve another way of research is technology opportunistic research when you invent something right and then you you know that by inventing that it's very powerful and it's good very very useful and and open a lot of opportunities but you don't know what this page is yet so we with this technology we are in the process of discovery where it can be used interactive musical plants is one opportunity smart door map is another opportunity on what are you trying to fill opportunity but the opportunities are endless