Steve Mann

Steve Mann (born 1962) is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto. He is a controversial figure in the wearable research community.

Career

Mann has more than 200 publications, including a textbook on electric eyeglasses and a popular culture book on day-to-day cyborg living.

Mann holds degrees from MIT (PhD in Media Arts and Sciences '97) and McMaster University, where he was also inducted into the McMaster University Alumni Hall of Fame, Alumni Gallery, 2004, in recognition of his career as an inventor and teacher. While at MIT he was one of the founding members of the Wearable Computers group in the Media Lab In 2004 he was named the recipient of the 2004 Leonardo Award for Excellence for his article "Existential Technology," published in Leonardo 36:1. [http://mitpress2.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/isast/awards2004excellence.html

Mann also works in the fields of computer mediated reality. He is a strong advocate of privacy rights, for which work he was an award recipient of the Chalmers Foundation in the fine arts. His work also extends to the area of sousveillance (a term he coined for "inverse surveillance").

He was the subject of a widely-publicized post-9/11 incident where Canadian airport security forcibly removed many of his wearable devices.

Mann as Cyborg

NOW, The Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Life have all described him as "the world's first cyborg", from his early work with wireless wearable webcams (see CyborgLog). Dr Mann has a number of publications describing his early adoption of an alterative life style with significant and interesting ideas. Unfortunately both he and his students inaccurately assert him to be the founder of the field of wearable computing based on his early work in personal imaging. This assertion ignores both peers and predecessors researching wearable computing. Most significantly the first wearable computer imaging systems were described by Vannevar Bush in his essay "As We May Think" in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1945, and the first wearable computers were built and used by Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon who first published their work in 1966.

In 2002-03-14, Mann received world-wide news attention when The New York Times (requires free signup incl. email address) reported on an incident in which he was detained by security personnel at St. John's International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada while preparing to board an Air Canada flight to Toronto. The article reported that Mann was strip-searched and his electronic implants were forcibly removed, disorienting him sufficiently to necessitate that he use a wheelchair. At the time, Mann's lawyer reportedly estimated the value of the lost equipment at $56,800 ^*" target="_blank" > The claims of brain damage have thus far only been asserted publicly by Mann. No authority with a medical licence has made any public assertion that Mann’s separation from his equipment caused brain damage or any other physiological harm. The severity of the bleeding wounds Mann claims to have received by having electrodes ripped from his body were also never publicly assessed by someone with a medical license. Technology philosopher Paul Virilio reported on this matter in his book Crepuscular Dawn [http://wearcam.org/virilio/scans.htm excerpt.

Movie documentary

In 2001, Peter Lynch made a movie, Cyberman, about Mann's life and inventions.

Similar Research

Other researchers with similar areas of interest include Raymond Kurzweil, and Eduardo Kac, the world's first person to have an identity microchip implanted (which Kac did as an art performance to initiate inquiry and philosophical debate -- quite different from the reasons for which Kevin Warwick later had an identity microchip implanted).

Books

Intelligent Image Processing ISBN 0471406376
''Cyborg: Digital Destiny and Human Possibility in the Age of the Wearable Computer Randomhouse Doubleday 2001
The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP): A Wiley Tech Brief ISBN 0471399922
International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 2003: Special Issue : Mediated Reality ISBN 080589604X
Advanced Palm Programming: Developing Real-World ApplicationsISBN 0471390879

External links