Born in Hamilton, Ontario, is a tenured professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, with cross-appointments to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Faculty of Forestry, at the University of Toronto. Mann holds degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD in Media Arts and Sciences ’97) and McMaster University. While at MIT, in then Director Nicholas Negroponte’s words he “brought the seed” that founded the Wearable Computing 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
Many of Mann’s inventions pertain to the field of computational photography. Mann was the first to propose and reduce to practice a signal representation based on a family of chirp signals, each associated with a coefficient, in a generalization of the wavelet transform that is now referred to as the chirplet transform. Mann was the first to produce an algorithm for automatically combining multiple pictures of the same subject matter, using algebraic projective geometry, to “stitch together” images using automatically estimated perspective correction. This is called the “Video Orbits” algorithm. Mann was the first to propose and implement an algorithm to estimate a camera’s response function from a plurality of differently exposed images of the same subject matter. He was also the first to propose and implement an algorithm to automatically extend dynamic range in an image by combining multiple differently exposed pictures of the same subject matter. This work has been built-upon by others, and also forms the basis for a new way of understanding electrical engineering, based on using the electrical analog of absement as the base unit. Mann invented an experimental musical instrument that uses pressurized hydraulic fluid, such as water, to make sound.
The instrument is played by placing the fingers in direct contact with the sound-producing hydraulic fluid, thus giving the musician a high degree of control over the musical expression in the sound. Telepointer, a wearable computer based on a pendant that contains a webcam and laser-based infinite depth-of-focus projector. 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”).
Mann and one of his PhD students, James Fung, together with some of his other students, have been building a cyborg community around the cyborg-logging concept. Mann, together with Professor Ian Kerr at the University of Ottawa, have written extensively on surveillance, sousveillance, and equiveillance. “Sousveillance”, a term coined by Mann, along with the concepts that he and Kerr have developed around these ideas, have created a new dialog for cyborg technologies, as well as related personal information gathering technologies like camera phones. He has created the related concept of Humanistic Intelligence. Joi Ito, a leading researcher in moblogging, credits Mann with having initiated the moblogging movement by creating a system for transmission of realtime pictures, video, and text.
In particular, from 1994 to 1996, Mann continuously transmitted his life’s experiences, in real time, to his website for others to experience, interact with, and respond to His CyborGLOGS (‘glogs), such as the spontaneous reporting of news as everyday experience, were an early predecessor of ‘blogs and the concept of blogging, and earlier than that, his pre-internet-era live streaming of personal documentary and cyborg communities defined cyborg-logging as a new form of social networking. Mann describes himself as the “father of wearable computing” but the world’s first wearable computer was created in 1961 by Edward O. Thorp, known as the father of wearable computers. Mann has also described himself as “the world’s first cyborg” in Canadian popular press such as NOW, The Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Life but has himself rejected the term “cyborg” as being too vague.
While he describes himself as the founder of the field of wearable computing based on his early work in personal imaging, there is controversy surrounding the exact definition of wearable computing, and whether any one person can be considered to have invented it. For example, wearable computer imaging systems were described by Vannevar Bush in his essay “As We May Think” in the Atlantic Monthly in July 1945 and wearable devices for timing the trajectory of the balls on a roulette table were built and used by Ed Thorp and Claude Shannon in 1961. Mann is presently collaborating with a number of researchers including Ian Kerr, Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law & Technology, University of Ottawa, who teaches a course on “Cyborg Law” that uses Mann’s book. Mann, together with Kerr and others, are doing a SSHRC-funded project to study the Ethics, Law & Technology of anonymity, authentication, surveillance, and sousveillance, in addition to issues related to cyborg-law. The anonequity project is ongoing, and collaborator Kerr has also researched and lectured widely on implantable technologies.
On July 17 2012, Mann claimed that on July 1st 2012 he and his family were eating dinner at BFI Champs Elysées, a McDonald’s restaurant in Paris, France when three employees allegedly assaulted Mann, apparently objecting to his wearing of a type of digital glasses, known as the EyeTap Digital Eye Glass. He claimed he was roughed up and tossed out of the restaurant and that the employees destroyed medical documentation that he had presented to them to explain his reason for wearing the device. Due to the employees alleged rough handling of the device, which he claimed was soundly attached to his head, photos of these persons were stored in the glasses memory and published, with faces concealed, on a blog. He also claims that his iPhone and the control board for the EyeTap were damaged after he was thrown out and his bladder released involuntarily, soaking the contents of his pockets. On July 18th, Mann’s alleged assault was denied by McDonalds. “I wear a computer vision system, and carry a letter from my family physician, as well as documentation on this system when I travel. I have worn a computer vision system of some kind for 34 years, and am the inventor of the technology that I wear and use in my day-to-day life. Although it has varied over the last 34 years, I have worn the present embodiment of this system for 13 years.
This simple design which I did in collaboration with designer Chris Aimone, consists of a sleek strip of aluminum that runs across the forehead, with two silicone nose pads. It holds an EyeTap device (computer-controlled laser light source that causes the eye itself to function as if it were both a camera and display, in effect) in front of my right eye. It also gives the wearer the appearance of having a “glass eye”, this phenomenon being known as the “glass eye” effect. Over the years the EyeTap has also therefore been known as the “Glass Eye” or “Eye Glass”, or “Digital Eye Glass”, using the word “Glass” in its singular form, rather than its plural form “Glasses” Recent news has described me as “the father of wearable computing” in the context of various commercially manufactured versions of similar eye glass, such as those made by companies like Google, Olympus, and the like, so as this technology becomes mainstream, McDonald’s might need to get used to it.
I originally created this technology, and the computer vision algorithms (e.g. HDR = High Dynamic Range), to help people see better. I have also assisted a number of blind and visually impaired (partially sighted) persons with various projects, and I continue to conduct research in this area. I was also part of the team that invented, designed, and built rehabilitation technology for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and this technology continues to be used by the CNIB”. For more information or to get in touch with Steve, just visit his blog at the link below.