Slashdot Mirror
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."
. . . Welcome our new Steve Mann Cyborg overlords.
From the yahoo story: One of his common setups involves a computer with a Pentium 4 processor, at least 512 gigabytes of memory ...
Someone might mug him to get that 512 gig of memory. Or even just to get the battery needed to power it.We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I'd like to see a bewolf cluster of...hims.
clifgriffin > blog
...so much so that going without the apparatus often leaves him feeling nauseous, unsteady, naked
This is the way I feel too sometimes... if I forget to leave my pager, cell phone, lap-top, sidekick, and laptop behind...
Honestly though, this guy is addicted to information. If you tried to take google away from me, I would feel the same way. Information is addicted... there's no way around it.
AC
He's not a cyborg, unless some of this hardware actually involved surgery or the replacement of biological parts. He's a gargoyle.
Video quote:
"Then he tells the employees that "HIS manager" makes him film public places for HIS security -- how does he know, he tells them, that the fire exits aren't chained shut? -- and that they'll have to talk to HIS manager."
Of course if he does that in a cinema he will be arrested and sent to a state pen where he will become even more attached (ouch) to his wearable computer thanks to the resident cybernetic surgeon, Joe 'Two Teeth' Bob.
Beep beep.
I think we all know the REAL reason this guy is becoming a cyborg. I think this is all I need to say: GO GO GADGET PENIS!
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.
Cyborg? He's not a cybernetic organism, he's guy who lugs around gear.
He's no more a cyborg than a guy covered in mud is a golem.
You can't take the sky from me...
Steve Mann: You'll have to talk to my manager.
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.
When asked how many brothers and sisters he has, his response was "I am third of five."
"Derp de derp."
The eventual coolness of wearable computers shouldn't be underestimated. Sure, it will start out with bleeding edgers being able to fire off posts to Slashdot using nothing but an elaborate series of eye movements. Early adopters tend to look silly to the rest of us. No shame in that.
But start combining technologies like mesh networks, cryptographic authentication schemes, GPS, and the like, and imagine where they're going. How cool would it be to walk down any street in the country, and be able to call up the name, location, and menu of every Chinese restaurant within seven blocks? Or pinpoint all the "single and looking" girls at a rock concert who don't identify themselves as cat lovers.
Imagine walking through a dark parking lot. If someone tries to attack you, one press of a button could notify the police and everyone within a two mile radius of your location.
In a lot of ways, this means giving up a certain amount of privacy. For example, the distress signal from the last paragraph isn't going to work if anyone, anywhere can hit the panic button anonymously. That's where the cryptographic authentication comes in. There needs to be a way to verify the originator and trustworthiness of a given piece of information, whether it be, "Yes, officer, I'm authorized to drive a motor vehicle," or "Chin Wan's has great stir fry." The infrastructure doesn't exist yet, and it doubtless will never be perfect, but someday it will be at least as trustworthy as asking to see someone's ID.
Some information will be automatically broadcasted, whether the user likes it or not (wanted for armed robbery). Some of it will be available to cashiers and law enforcement (too young to buy beer). Some of it will be voluntarily made available to the world (likes long walks, sunsets, and jiu-jitsu).
It's going to be fun to watch these technologies come together. Possibly in a train-wreck fashion.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Seems to me that that'd be a better place to start. Rewire the LCD output to go to his glasses-screen, find CF modules for things like the video cam, GPS, WiFi, and what-have-you, and you're good. The only big issue I see is the storage space, which, with an IBM microdrive, is probably limited to 5GB or so.
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
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Then he tells the employees that "HIS manager" makes him film public places for HIS security -- how does he know, he tells them, that the fire exits aren't chained shut? -- and that they'll have to talk to HIS manager.
His behavior in such showdowns generally provokes hostility, confusion or resigned shrugs
Well, of course it does, because that's ridiculous...
But don't try telling Mann that the complaining employees are just doing their jobs, and that his real beef is with executives who make store policy. Mann believes everyone should fight The System, those powerful institutions lurking behind the one-way mirrors.
Oh please, the execs of huge corporations are only human, too. Are you saying that corporations are some kind of sentient beings, having no trace of the true human limbs that support them? Lurking behind one-way mirrors... puu-leese. Sure, corporations are greedy, most don't give a crap about their customers, and they have their own little worlds, but there's humans behind those corporations, not idiot machine-humans like you. In the end, you're probably just as greedy and stupid as the execs are. I can see it now: "All humans who do not conform the cyborg initiative will be assimilated by force. Buy Powerade"
Not everyone can afford your life style, Mr. Mann, some people have to make an honest living, and can't go around being ridiculous the whole day. Some people aren't going to "fight The System" because they have a family to support and lives to lead. This Professor just needs to get a freakin' life, seriously. I think this is just a case of a guy with absurd ideas having the means to realize his equally bizzare notions that everyone should be walking around like a f**king cyborg in order to be more human.
A cyborg could, say, take pictures of hostile police officers during a political demonstration and instantly post them on the Web -- to spur others to join in the protest, perhaps, or to simply provide alternative documentation of the scene. Mann calls such postings "glogs" -- short for "cyborg blogs"
Shut the hell up. Wow. "Glogs"? Who the hell do you think you are? The logical progression of human evolution may indeed be through machine integration, but not right now. Just stop it, you pri*k. You know why they have cameras in stores? So if some punk comes in and robs it, they'll have evidence against them. And why don't they allow cameras in stores? Well, I'm not too sure about that one, but why the hell would you want to video tape in a store anyway? I'm sure the exits are chained up, you paranoid piece of crap. And we have police to keep order, not to beat down innocent citizens. Although that may happen in other countries, you live in CANADA!! Canada you idiot! Probably one of the most passive counties in the world! And if there was a demonstration where people got hurt, there's a good chance they deserved it for being stupid radicals with too much time on their hands, like you (but I'm not against demonstrations. There are entirly legitimate demonstrations to be had, such as one against the Iraq war).
"Clerks should be confronted with their clerk-iness," Mann says one afternoon in the Deconism Gallery, an electronic-art studio he runs near Toronto's Chinatown"
WHAT!?! What the hell are you talking about!? What is wrong with you!? Clerk-iness?! You mean their honest day's work to support themselves? Oh, oh, sorry, sorry. Wouldn't want to spoil your perfect world with laggarts who have to support themselves. Far be it from them to ask you for a bit of respect for a freakin' job, at least they're trying. You, on the other hand, were
They can kick him out of the store for videotaping within the building. He can object all he wants, but unless he's willing to fork over enough money to buy the store, there's nothing he can legally do to stop them from removing him from the premises, calling security if they need to.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Not everyone can afford your life style, Mr. Mann, some people have to make an honest living, and can't go around being ridiculous the whole day. Some people aren't going to "fight The System" because they have a family to support and lives to lead. This Professor just needs to get a freakin' life, seriously.
Thank you!
Steve Mann is just a self-impressed geek who lugs around a portable computer. He's not some kind of visionary. His work isn't improving people's lives. It's not making him more intelligent, healthier, more physically capable, or longer-lived. In fact, about the time that he started drifting away to read e-mail while I was talking to him, I'd be tempted to drive that EyeTap 3" back into his cranium -- which couldn't possibly be good for him.
Why doesn't Steve Mann take some of that energy and apply it towards systems that do real-time text-to-speech for blind people trying to get around in the sighted world? Why doesn't he put some effort towards a system that stimulates muscles so that paralyzed people could perform tasks we take for granted, like picking things up or turning door knobs? No, he's too full of himself to try to actually help someone.