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A team of scientists at the University of Chicago have designed a device. One of the strangest things we've ever heard of is a heart rate monitor powered by a mold.
The watch needs to be taken care of because the "blob" needs to be reached from one end of the enclosure to the other. It needs to be fed water and oats to grow.
Jasmine Lu, a researcher at the Human Computer Integration Lab at the University of Chicago, said that people were forced to think about their relationship to devices in a lot of interesting ways.
Since most of us don't treat our devices like pets, it makes sense. It becomes a whole different ball game when there's a significant living thing in the watch that's important to its function.
The five people who wore it for two weeks each were able to record their feelings in journals and interviews.
The first week was devoted to growing the slimy stuff until it was able to power the heart rate monitor.
The researchers told the participants to stop feeding the slime by the second week of the experiment.
Almost all of the people were surprised. Pedro Lopes is an assistant professor of computer sciences at U Chicago. There were many responses from people. Some people were sad and others felt the connection was broken.
How we maintain such devices that are becoming more and more integrated into our daily lives is an intriguing question.
From the way consumer devices are designed now, Lu says, those aspects of care are less focused on or made less accessible.
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