Disney Imagineers have developed Living Pandorran Plants that you can interact with. These living plants are actually Cyborgs, that can detect and respond to user interaction. Disney is developing “Pandora–The World of Avatar” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Florida. James Cameroon, producer of the movie is collaborating with Disney on this project.

From the moment Avatar was released, there was an immense visceral response from people over the world that they wanted to visit Pandora, and interact with the bioluminescent forest and plant life.

Now thanks to Disney that’s gonna be possible. Disney wants to make it a transformational experience that you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

A new patent granted to Disney discloses details of the technolgy behind these cyborg plants. The patent is titled User Interactive Living Organisms. The patent describes capacitive sensing to detect human interaction with living plants. The sensing system connects to the plant via an electrode. The sensing system utilizes the natural conductive paths (such as water-carrying veins) found in an organic plant to transmit an electrical signal to the plant. The sensing system gets activated when a user directly touches the plant or even comes near the plant. In response, an audio-video effect is played.

For example, when a user touches a plant, the plant is illuminated. If stem is touched, a stimulated earthquake is activated. If leaves are touched, a cool breeze is released.

The system can also detect a user near a plant as user approaches a tree, a hidden shower is activated. And when user touches a leaf, smoke generator is activated.

Source: PatentYogi