Botanicalls allows thirsty plants to place phone calls for human help, notes textually.

Botanicalls, a project by students at NYU, opens a new channel of communication between plants and humans, in an effort to promote successful inter-species cohabitation and understanding.

When a plant’s microcontroller determines that the plant needs to make a phone call, it contacts a PHP script with the plant’s ID number and type of need. PHP then packages this information and passes it on to Asterisk (an open-source telephone system) which generates the call.

When the call is placed, an audio file in played in the voice of the plant expressing its need.

NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program showcase dozens of interesting ideas in their quarterly shows.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007 at 2:37 am.