Microsoft Research: Project Florence

Project Florence is a speculative glimpse into our future, where both our natural and digital worlds could co-exist in harmony through enhanced communication. Combining natural language research, biology, design, and engineering, we have created the first instantiation of a plant to human interface through the power of language. In this system, the user first attempts to communicate with or influence the plant through modulated natural language using a Surface computer. The conversation received from the human is analyzed for sentiment and semantic content using a Natural Language Algorithm. The resulting analysis is interpreted into signals that are used to modulate a light source that projects onto the plant. During this conversational turn, the chemical and electrical reactions from the plant and information about its environment are observed. Those signals from the plant are combined with the linguistic input to generate a conversational response from the plant. The resulting response back to the human is