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Money 10 Government & Politics 11 Community Colleges 12 Science 13 Students 14 Athletics 15 International 16 People 17 Events 18 The Chronicle Review 19 Jobs Features 20 Colloquy 21 Colloquy Live 22 Magazines & Journals 23 Grants & Fellowships 24 Facts & Figures 25 Issues in Depth 26 Site Sampler The Chronicle in Print 27 This Week's Issue 28 Back Issues 29 Related Materials Services 30 About The Chronicle 31 How to Contact Us 32 How to Register 33 How to Subscribe 34 Subscriber Services 35 Change Your User Name 36 Change Your Password 37 Forgot Your Password? YOUNG Toronto If you saw the world through Steve Mann's eyes -- actually, through the glasses ALSO SEE: MULTIMEDIA: See a 45 video demonstration of a wearable computing system. As you walked across campus, you could simultaneously surf the Web or type notes using a handheld keypad. Or you could look at everything as a kind of television show, filtered through a video camera that brightened or darkened what you saw -- for easier viewing or just to suit your mood. Mann, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Toronto, was one of the first people to propose and develop "wearable computers," now a growing area of research at colleges around the world. He has also taken an unusually personal approach to his work, turning himself into a long-term experiment: For nearly 20 years, he has worn a computer-vision system nearly every waking moment, trying out his latest inventions and learning what it is like to live in the physical and virtual worlds at the same time. His eyeglasses look like a prop from a science-fiction film. A mirror positioned over his right eye beams a video display into his retina. Wires run from the glasses to a small computer concealed in a belly bag under his wool sweater. This is an older version of his "rig," as he calls the wearable computer. His latest model is smaller and more discreet, fitted into a standard pair of sunglasses. But that machine was damaged by airport-security officials, he says, in a recent incident that has led him to sue the airline. Mann is right about a coming age of wearable computers, and that his experiences highlight the technical and social issues that must be overcome before computers move off the desk and onto the body. Mann is a poor spokesman for the emerging field -- in part because of his tendency to focus on his own agenda, which opposes many corporate uses of technology. Mann teaches a course on how to become a "cyborg," a term he uses to describe himself. A cyborg, short for "cybernetic organism," is partly organic and partly mechanical. The most famous fictional cyborg is probably Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in The Terminator. Mann's belief that wearable computers are not just a new kind of gadget, but the beginning of a fundamental shift in the relationship between people and technology. Mann's custom-built computer is not just a tool, he says, but an extension of his perception, his memory, and his identity. He smiles approvingly when one of his students shows up for class attached to about 15 pounds of computer equipment, including two small speakers hanging from his backpack straps. The student, Brandon Niblet, says that he had begun creating his wearable computer even before taking Mr. Mann's course, but that he recently started wearing it every day. Some of the six students taking the graduate-level course, however, are less enthusiastic about wearing their creations around the campus. The biggest drawbacks are the size and expense of the systems -- though that is likely to change if companies begin selling wearable computers for the mass market. For now, building a wearable computer requires considerable technical skill, since few commercial companies make the devices or the software for them. Mann spends the first hour of class filling five chalkboards with equations, reviewing a technique he developed to enhance the digital-video images captured by wearable cameras. Much of his current research focuses on analyses of digital video, like developing programs that can identify what kinds of objects are in a picture. That could help a wearable computer detect what its wearer is seeing, so that the computer could automatically display relevant information. Mann has also developed software that lets his computerized vision system alter the world he sees. He has set his wearable device to detect billboard advertisements, for instance, and to wipe them out of his visual field. What Wearers Gain The biggest benefit of wearable computers, Mr. Mann says, is that they allow people to communicate in new ways. When he goes grocery shopping, he can beam live pictures of what he sees in each aisle to his wife, Betty, who sometimes wears a computer herself. She can inspect the tomatoes he picks up and even send images to his eye indicating which one she wants him to bring home. He is experimenting with a system that automatically records what he sees whenever he becomes excited or agitated, permitting him to review the recordings later. The system uses electrodes attached to his chest to monitor his heart rate to determine when something out of the ordinary is happening. The technology can also turn wearers into news broadcasters via the Web, sending out live images of anything they witness. Mann and his students have attended protests in Toronto while wearing their computers, allowing them to disseminate firsthand images of the events before local television stations do. Starting in 1994, while he was a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famed Media Laboratory, Mr. Mann broadcast images from his wearable computer to a Web site continuously for two years. He quickly found that many of his professors and fellow students objected to being unwitting stars in a "reality" show. Some of them said that he was violating their privacy, and that he should not be allowed to wear a camera in their workplace. Others, however, defended what he was doing as a function of his research. A compromise was eventually reached, letting him broadcast in some parts of the lab but not others. He also had to wear a red light, which lit up when he was Webcasting, so people could duck out of the way if they did not want to appear online. Mann's wearable computer involved bulky helmets, heavy battery packs, and other cumbersome accessories. Picard, a professor at the Media Lab who served as his thesis adviser. Mann touts his devices as enhancing communication, the technology has often alienated him from his peers. Celebrity Status Today his work has made him something of a celebrity. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently made a documentary about him and his work, and news photographers often visit his laboratory. Mann face to face, however, you cannot be sure whether he is looking at you or reading the latest computer news from an Internet discussion list. The experience can be off-putting, at least to those who are not accustomed to spending time with cyborgs. Mann points out that humans have adapted to other wearable technologies that must have seemed strange at first -- eyeglasses, wristwatches, and such. Despite his belief in the value of wearable computers, however, Mr. In what seems like a paradox, he calls himself a "cyborg Luddite," warning of the dangers of some of the very technology he is helping to invent. He decries what he sees as the invasive use of technology by corporations and governments, and he has organized a series of performance-art-style activities to make his points. He has taken video cameras into retail stores, and when employees objected -- and they almost always did -- he pointed out the stores' surveillance cameras and asked the clerks to stop filming him, too. Meanwhile, he was recording the whole interaction using the camera in his wearable computer. Mann's emphasis on the social and political implications of technology. Mann at the Media Lab were valuable, and that too often students fail to realize the social implications of their work. He, too, uses a wearable computer nearly all of the time. In fact, he sometimes gets tired of showing of...
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