botaniCALLS

NYU has a graduate program in Interactive Telecommunications [link]. Basically - as best as I can tell - they take several pieces of technologies (that often aren't used with each other) to create new interactive products. For example, race cars that are controlled by the sound of your voice on your cell phone.

They had their annual event and one project that I thought was pretty cool is botaniCALLS [link].

--the device allows plants to call /email when they don't have enough water or light (or has been given too much water)
--the device (configured by type of plant) has water and photoelectric sensors and is hooked into your wi-fi network

Pretty cool huh? Now, the major drawback that struck me was that the device was quite large. If they could create something ostensibly small enough that you could bury (or come close to it with the photosensor still being exposed) in the soil of a relatively small potted plant - that would be great. Quite creative and impressive regardless.