CYBORG BLUES

Imagine, if you will, never being away from your computer—because you’re wearing it. Imagine being able to surf the Web as you walk around, checking the weather, your e-mail, or even, dare I say it, the latest on-line offering from your Humble Columnist, all beamed into your eye via a sophisticated display that appears to make the computer screen "float" in your field of vision.

Nerdvana? Nightmare? Either way, according to Steve Mann of the University of Toronto, so-called "wearable computers" are the future. And Mann, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, is putting his microchips where his mouth is…sometimes literally. For the last 20 years, Mann’s daily life has been an experiment in which he is attempting to turn himself into a true "cyborg": a cybernetic organism , part man, part machine.

Most of us, when we hear that word, think of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s futuristic assassin in "The Terminator". But unlike Arnold’s Teutonic tin man, Mann doesn’t yell computer-generated insults through doorways or attempt to murder innocent waitresses, which is why he probably still has a University job (Canadians are a tolerant folk, but even they have their limits). Mann’s hardware is, at least for the time being, a bit more unwieldy. According to an article in the "Chronicle of Higher Education", "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. A digital video camera captures whatever he sees. Wires run from the glasses to a small computer concealed in a belly bag under his wool sweater."

Mann is quick to explain the daily advantages of being hooked into cyberspace 24/7. When he goes grocery shopping, he can beam live pictures of what he sees in each aisle to his wife. (Yes, he’s married. I’m as surprised as you are.) "She can inspect the tomatoes he picks up and even send images to his eye indicating which one she wants him to bring home," according to the article.

Not surprisingly, not everyone is thrilled about being part of Mann’s never-ending experiment. Back in 1994, some of his fellow grad students and professors objected to having the live video feed from a Mann-mounted webcam broadcast continuously to his Website, feeling that it was an invasion of their privacy. Some people made it a point to avoid Mann entirely until the lonely cyborg agreed to some restrictions, such as only filming in some areas of the lab and not others, with a red light that went on to let people know they were on-camera.

Then, of course, there are his problems with the airlines. Even though the traveling Mann tries to give the airlines a heads-up about his system whenever he flies, someone at Air Canada apparently either didn’t get the word or, more likely, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They strip-searched Mann, "ripping the electrodes from his body, causing bleeding and damaging his computer system." The article doesn’t mention where the electrodes were placed so that removing them caused bleeding, and I’m sure as heck not going to ask. Even worse, when Mann was suddenly deprived of his computer imaging system, he became so disoriented that he fell down constantly and banged into walls. Yes, I felt bad about laughing too, but neither of us can help it. Go ahead. Mann is, of course, suing the airline.

The idea of the wearable computer may seem weird to many. There are those who fear that the device may alienate people from each other. Mann, however, points out that this could have been said about many other inventions. "We've adapted to shoes and clothing," he says. "Does clothing put you at arm's length from the world? Don't shoes prevent you from feeling the earth beneath your feet? It seems reasonable that we should be able to adapt into a higher form of life that is with these kinds of machines."

Lest you think that Mann is some sort of mindless tech-junkie, he has been quite vocal in opposing the ways in which the technology can be misused. For example, even though he used to wear a webcam all day, he is adamantly opposed to the security cameras that seem to be becoming a given everywhere you go. On several occasions, he was walked into a store, fully rigged out, camera whirring. When store personnel inevitably demand that he turn his cameras off, he demands that they do the same. You have to like the guy for that, if nothing else.

While I doubt that we’ll all be decked out in full cyber-regalia any time in the near future, I have to admit that some of the things Mann has done with his technology are quite intriguing. For instance, he has tweaked the software running his video displays so that he can remove annoying stimuli—billboards, for example--from his vision. They simply don’t show up on his display. Imagine the possibilities of this. Imagine never having to see, for example, those annoying promos for "a powerful new episode of ER". The next logical step, one can imagine, is to be able to replace unpleasant stimuli with more pleasing ones. The day I can replace the image of a persistent door-to-door magazine peddler, with, say, Sandra Bullock reading me the naughty parts of "Lady Chatterly’s Lover" is probably the day you can sign me up.

COPYRIGHT 2002 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.