Nature Calls

Once we were urged to talk to our plants. Thanks to Twitter, they can now talk back

"It creates this really odd social dynamic," says Hartman, who's following her dad's Arbicola on Twitter. "I know whether or not he's taking care of it."

Another thing Botanticalls illustrates is people's growing comfort level with technology. The hardware on the Botanticalls device, a leaf-shaped computer circuit board, is exposed for a reason - the company wants people to touch it - play with it, tweak it and personalize it.

One buyer used his kit on a plant he bought at IKEA, says Rob Faludi, one of the company's founders, who's now an instructor at NYU. The man customized it so that the plant "spoke" to him in Swedish. Other people have modified the circuit so that it works with more than one plant.

Faludi says there's almost a movement afoot to make technology more accessible - to demystify it.

"It's kind of a reaction to technology companies gluing things shut and putting epoxy over the chip," he says. "They didn't want you touching anything. But the DIY movement is an attempt to take control of technology, to say, 'Hey, it's OK to crack open your remote control, your television, your VCR."