Real-Life Cyborg Challenges Reality With Technology

September 25, 2001 | Source: New York Times

Dr. Steve Mann, one of the world’s first cyborgs, fights intrusive technology (like surveillance cameras) with technology, wearing computers on his body and cameras in his glasses so he can “shoot back” by recording everything he sees.His most important innovation is an “video orbits” algorithm that records the images he is looking at and automatically assembles a composite picture.

By pasting together many overlapping images, the camera behind the glasses effectively becomes a camera of far higher resolution. It also tracks head movement well enough to allow the computer to superimpose a fixed display on the world.

He expects wearable computers to become common in 10 years. “I just see it as the thing that replaces all the things you normally carry around: cellphones, pagers, wristwatches, all those things become subsumed into one item,” he said.