The response is always the same. Oh, it's like one of those Tamagotchi things. Well, no, because the telegarden is a real garden. It's a real plot of petunias, peppers and marigolds in the very real Linz, Austria. A robot arm, controlled by users via the Internet, seeds and waters the plants and a live video feed lets users check the progress of their carpal-tunneled green thumbs.
Some users go in everyday.
They chat, they check their plants. Through projects like telegarden, Goldberg has learned that Web users are very protective of their reality. He has had users accuse him of placing pre-stored images of a garden on the site. They get furious at the thought that the garden might not be real. When we put our trust out and feel betrayed, we care a lot.