(2/17/99)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Got a laptop? A cellphone? A PalmPilot? Think you're wired? Forget about it.
Canadian Steve Mann, who wears his computer wrapped around his body and can receive e-mail on the run through special glasses that function as his computer screen, is the most wired man on the planet.
Mann, a University of Toronto professor, offers glimpses of the future at his Web sites: http://wearcam.org, http://hi.eecg.toronto.edu/mann.html and http://wearcomp.org/wearpubs.html.
``Some things look crazy now but will make sense in about 20 years,'' he said in a telephone interview.
The 36-year-old inventor, dubbed ``Web Man Walking'' by The National Enquirer tabloid, believes ``WearComps,'' wearable computers, are in our future and offer many benefits such as personal security, greater connectedness with others and the ability to screen out advertising.
His Web sites offer pictures of Mann and others in full digital regalia. There is even a do-it-yourself section for people who want to build their own WearComp.
Mann, whose original rigs made him look like the part-human, part-machine Borgs of ``Star Trek'' fame, has refined his equipment to the point where you cannot tell he is packing a computer. He calls his current setup an ``UnderwearComp'' because it is hidden under his street clothes.
The helmet-like gear he used to wear has given way to what looks like a pair of ordinary sunglasses.
PAINTING IN VIRTUAL SPACE
Some of the site's best pictures come from a course Mann gave last fall where he turned 12 students into ``photoborgs.'' They used wearable computers to take pictures ``as a group of artists working together to paint in virtual space.''
Scroll down the Wearcam home page (http://www.wearcam.org) for a nice group shot of Mann and his photoborgs. A link takes you to beautiful pictures of the university's Convocation Hall that resulted from the photoborg collaboration. (Note: some of the pictures are BIG and take a long time to download.)
``I think that this is first (course of its kind),'' Mann said. ``It seems that it's still kind of out there.''
Mann was a teen-age cyborg. While in high school, he created a rig to control photographic flash lamps that he says was the world's first wearable computer.
He first gained media attention as a computer-wearing grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's famed Media Lab. From 1994 to 1996, while at the Media Lab, he wore his computer almost all the time, transmitting pictures of what he was looking at at any given moment to the Internet and receiving thousands of e-mail messages a day.
``I ran that for a couple of years and after that about 30,000 voices in my head kind of drove me crazy,'' leading him to stop relaying pictures to the Net, he said. ``It worked out well in the early days of the Internet.''
Mann said his field has gained credibility, especially since a 1996 conference on wearable computing he organized for the Institute Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
NOT JUST STEVE WITH A CAMERA ANYMORE
``This was more than 20 years after I invented it. ... It wasn't news but the world was sort of becoming aware of it,'' he said. ``In some sense I think it marked the point where it wasn't just Steve running around with a camera anymore.''
Indeed, wearable computers are now used by companies and government agencies, enabling workers to take their computers with them and keep their hands free. One manufacturer, Xybernaut Corp. (http://www.xybernaut.com), donated some of its cool-looking devices for use by Mann's ``photoborgs.''
Mann, whose other inventions include an ``eyetap camera'' that transmits images of what he sees, said he wants to license his technology to manufacturers in North America and abroad, especially Japan. ``I'm working on a large number of new inventions,'' he said.
If you want to be a do-it-yourself cyborg, go to http://wearcam.org/index.html for complete instructions on how to build your own wearable computer. But be careful out there.
Mann warns would-be borgs to beware of faulty wiring, the potential dangers of long-term exposure to radio energy, eye damage, brain damage from long-term use of wearable computers, reduced attention span and flashbacks, to name just a few.
Warnings aside, he says wearable computers offer many benefits. A device that relays pictures of what the user is looking at could, for example, function as a personal security device and could help reduce crime.
Wearable computers can also help people such as family members stay connected, Mann says.
He is leery of advertising and sees WearComps as a way to screen ads out. The devices can be programmed to show users more pleasing images in place of advertising. For a dramatic illustration, go to http://wearcam.org/condomwoman.index.htm, where Mann shows how a WearComp would replace a condom ad hanging over a urinal with a more pleasing image.
``The ads are getting more and more invasive, like above the urinal where you can't avoid it,'' Mann said. ``The hope is that the (computer) glasses can give us a little bit of peace and quiet and a little bit of solitude from all this information.''