As technology becomes more advanced, people become less competent. At least, it seems that way. Tasks that were once routine — crunching numbers, washing dishes and clothes — have been all but entirely transferred to machines. Even the most basic and wholesome chores, like feeding our animals, can be scheduled or done at a distance.
Now, there is another way foist responsibility onto machines. It’s a new tool called Bloomengine that’s designed to take the guesswork out of growing delicate plants for brown-thumbed city folk who haven’t yet mastered the science (and art) of horticulture.
“Bloomengine is an indoor gardening smart pot for people living in big cities,” Seulki William Park, Bloomengine’s inventor, told Digital Trends. Park described that the device has “various functions for flower cultivation and works in conjunction with a smartphone.” Created with beginners in mind, it is meant to allow users to bring the growing process safely indoors, growing plants from seed in the comfort of a high-tech, greenhouse-like chamber.
Using Bloomengine is purportedly simple. Users place a peat pellet into a bit of water, which causes it to expand, and then place the pellet into the growing chamber. They then plant a seed. The chamber automates much of the rest of the process, including providing the plant with adequate light, water, and aeration.
Featured in the high-tech, full-service greenhouse are a built-in LED, water pump, and small fan that aids in flower cultivation. The full-spectrum LED is optimized for plant growth. The water pump circulates the water to ensure it stays fresh between fillings. And the fan is designed to support photosynthesis by exchanging the air inside the chamber with air outside. The Bloomengine app can be set to notify users if anything in the system goes wrong and the plant’s health is potentially compromised.
Small plants are best suited for Bloomenginer. Park said he suggests users grow plants like gazanias, rose periwinkles, and boxwood basil. Once the plants have grown to a healthy enough size, they can be taken out of the chamber and replanted.
Bloomengine is expected to retail for $169 but you can claim yours for a $129 by pledging to the project’s Kickstarter campaign. Nearly 300 backers have pledged almost $51,000 on Kickstarter at the time this article was published. The project already raised $10,128 on Indiegogo. For an added cost, a camera-equipped model lets users record their plant’s growth in action.
The device is expected to be available in July but as always, we offer a disclaimer about crowdfunding projects. Backers to the project’s crowdfunding campaigns may see the device before then, Park said.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.