AP Article On Cyborg Steve Mann

Vellmont writes "Slashdots favorite Cyborg, University of Toronto Engineering Professor Steve Mann has an AP article about him out. You can read the article on Salon or Yahoo (as well as many other places). The article is well done, and I particularly love Prof. Mann's way of dealing with stores who prohibit videotaping. Slashdot ran a previous story about Prof. Mann's troubles with Airport Security in March 2002."

Comments

Re:Not a cyborg.

[Poeir]

But according to this article, linked to in the summary, some of it is implants, so he is a cyborg.

nauseous side effects?

[t0qer]

Mann, a 41-year-old engineering professor at the University of Toronto, spends hours every day viewing the world through that little monitor in front of his eye -- so much so that going without the apparatus often leaves him feeling nauseous, unsteady, naked.

I think it's called anxiety. I get it alot when i'm away from my computer, I don't have that clickly click click of the keyboard (it's bordering on OCD now)

I would also think the nauseous side effects he's experiencing when he takes his headgear off might be what I suffer from too. I think my eyes are used to focusing on my CRT a foot away from my eyes since i'm in front of the PC so much. Also my cochlea in my ear is used to my head not moving so much. When I go outside I get the double whammy of viewing objects that are not in my average focus, and i'm moving around.

Not too good for his health...

[Cska Sofia]

Since the device only covers one eye, it would surely lead to asymmetrical vision problems. Rather quickly, I'd imagine, given how close the image is.

Re:Eeeegads!

[Neop2Lemus]

I agree.

I was at the Toronto Film Festival a few years ago and they'd done a film about him (here)

We walked out on that film. What made the hour we sat in that theatre more offensive than interesting was that this guy wore his gear around, really had no idea what to do with it, and had a huge ego because he had toys on his head that other people didn't. It wasen't that it was a hobby: cool, but possibly inapplicable to real life, but that he thought he was onto something important and he wasen't. I mean, he'd walk into a WalMart and set up a fuss when they told him no cameras in the store.

Why the university keeps him on I have no idea. If someone can tell me, I'd like to know (seriously, I would like to know).

He suffers from "transition sickness"

[farrellj]

When he gets sick from not viewing the world through his video camera, he is suffering a form the same thing people who spend a lot of time in Virtual Reality do...their brains adapt to the slight lag caused by the electronics, and I theorize that they do so quickly because video is a much "hotter" medium...that is, it is like a firehose for the real visual field that the eye is used to. When that lag is eliminated, by taking the display off, it takes a while to adapt back to the visually cooler natural environment...and until it adapts, your inner ear and your visual perceptions are out of sync, and that can cause nausia. ...based upon observations from being the techie at a Virtual Reality Gameing place for 6 months.

ttyl
Farrell