Smart pot!

I love plants and planting, even the mud and the care you have to give them each day. I can't explain it but somehow a bit of gardening/planting somehow comforts me. I feel a sense of happiness whenever I see a bud turn into a nice plant and flowers spring forth them more so when they bear fruits or when they're ready for picking and cooking...

So I was quite curious about this post and I know you plant lovers will too!

Junyi Heo's Pet Plant

Growing plants would be a lot easier if plants could express what it is they need from you. Fret not because that’s what the Pet Plant by Junyi Heo does. The very sleek looking pot measures soil conditions, temperature, humidity, and water - calculates those variables based on the need of said plant, and expresses its condition via a series of pictograms on an LCD display.

the Pet Plant is connected to computers through its USB port

It’s also smart enough to know if you’ve over watered and will systematically drain itself into a water vessel. All this high tech goodness does mean it needs power but a simple USB interface does double duty by charging and transmitting pertinent information to and from computer software.

icons that show your plant's needs

By the way, the pot's designer is Junyi Heo.

OLED passport!

A cousin asked me last week to call the US embassy regarding the policy on the new machine readable passports. I was a bit lost about it 'coz it was the first time somebody told me to ask about it and its vital rule in visa applications whatsoever. Besides I don't know where on the embassy's website should i check about the policy.

Well i got cross-eyed with the task anyway...hehee! And just now i saw this post on Gizmodo about OLED passports. I find this very convenient indeed! No more needless questions and shorter lines at airport counters! less frazzles! OLED and Gizmodo posted the following about the passport

"Samsung SDI and German security printer Bundesdruckerei have demonstrated a passport that features a slim and bendable OLED colour display within a polycarbonate data page. The display can be used to provide a raft of information including a video of the document holder.

According to the suppliers, tommorow’s ID documents will work without contact and without internal batteries. The integration of a display makes electronic ID documents even more difficult to forge and opens up the way for new security applications, they claim.

Samsung SDI developed the display to be just 300µm thick. However, even with the integrated colour display, the data page of the ePassport is still only 700µm thick, the companies claim.

The display comprises an active matrix display with organic light emitting diodes (AMOLED). This means that located behind every pixel of the display is an active electronic circuit with low power consumption. AMOLED displays are said to provide excellent colour images and can be produced in much thinner formats that conventional LCDs.

The materials used for the display are heat-resistant, so that the passport card can be laminated and hence protected against manipulation.

The display is activated via the power provided by a contactless reader, so that the document itself does not require any batteries. The suppliers say that it will be possible to retrieve all kinds of information via the display, for instance, a moving passport image of the document holder, as well as text-based information, such as the passport holder’s address."