Swedish Design - A Buzzword In Search of Meaning

(Article first published in Currents No. 1 2005).



Swedish design is a buzzword, and like many such words fuzzy. Seeking clarity, Currents interviewed design experts in Sweden and America, only to find that although there is a general agreement and appreciation for Swedish design of the past century, there is little consensus about what it stands for today.

“Swedish design held a unique status in the U.S. since World War II,” says Craig Vogel, who is chairman of the board of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA) as well as design professor at the University of Cincinnati. Talking about Swedish furniture, he stresses its clean quality, an understated form, and respect for natural materials,” not unlike America’s Shaker and Amish tradition. He also points to glassware, tableware and lightning as examples of design that made Sweden famous.

“In the 20th century, Swedish design was by and large aristocratic, based on a sense of esthetics and technical execution. This is a critical component of what we consider to be Swedish design. Within that body of work, there was a movement from, say 1914-1917 up the present day, where this good design became increasingly available to a larger part of the public. This had something to do with an educated taste and refined production. The colors tended to be muted, the forms had a certain grace to them, which you never would mistake for German or French or English or American production. They spoke about an indigenous culture,” says the author Derek E. Ostergard, who was previously Dean of the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design and Culture in New York.

But what happens to this tradition when production becomes mass production, and evermore globalized corporations’ head for the world market in a globalizing world? IKEA speaks with a stringent voice, according to Craig Vogel, and it has built an infrastructure for Swedish design in America. But is it Swedish design, or just a design that was mostly made in Sweden, and marketed in a Swedish context? Is flat packing and global brand management Swedish? Derek Ostergard loves Swedish design and believes that it has made an enormous contribution, but sees it as being shortchanged in today’s world. “The Swedes are just scrambling, like we all are, to find any niche we can to sell our products.” This upsets Derek Ostergard, who holds the prestigious Swedish title of the “Polar Star” (“Polstjärneorden.”) “The reason that I sound angry is that I am angry. Swedish products and the history of Swedish products are superb, but the Swedes are not looking in their own backyard anymore. They are looking to markets and cultures that they don’t get. They think that if they use the name Sweden, people are going to get it, but people don’t know Sweden anymore.”

Globalization, or at least Europeanization, of the design education could make it even harder to say what is Swedish about design coming out of Sweden, or made by a Swedish-born designer working in London or San Francisco. “We will soon have a three-year bachelor education followed by a masters program, and design students will be able to switch to another school after three years. We will have to educate them so that they immediately can adept to a new school,” says Claus Eckhardt, a German who is professor of Industrial Design at Lund’s University (LTH) in southern Sweden. These changes are part of a European-wide reform in accordance with the Bologna declaration. “Teachers are coming from international areas, which might result in an international style. Swedish or Scandinavian design has a quite strong position in Europe, but as we mix and match in the future, you might not be able to see if a designer is coming from Sweden or Germany or Italy,” he says.

It will be easier to preserve the national heritage in less globalized industries, like furniture and interior design. “We will still have the cultural roots there, but design will be more and more international when we are talking about industrial design; about big companies like Saab and Volvo. And Swedish designers will look abroad for jobs. They will be able to use design knowledge to find leading positions in huge companies. This could lead to a transfer of Scandinavian philosophy, but also of modifications of the design style.” Claus Eckhardt doesn’t see much of a common national design when it comes to Sweden’s multinational giants, maybe with one big exception: “IKEA is a super-international brand. It is accepted everywhere in the world. The interesting thing with IKEA is that they are spreading Swedish design. It is one of the biggest exporters of Swedish culture, both in how they present themselves, and in how they look. Their products are cheap, which means that everybody can have them. It’s in their positioning and in how they sell the product. They are socially oriented and their products are accessible for everyone, which is one of the core ideas of good industrial design.”

Ronald B. Kemnitzer, president of IDSA and professor of architecture and design at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, says that his own esteem of Sweden as a design country “revolved around some of the more traditional crafts and designs.” But he is open to the possibility that tomorrow’s designers might have gotten their image of Swedish design from companies like Ericsson. “I do have some very strong feelings about globalism and local cultural identity. I feel passionately that we as designers need to be on guard to protect it. If we move towards a truly global, universal visual esthetic, we may reduce some of the richness of the fabric of life.” He compares to food. “People from all countries enjoy food from other countries, but if we were all to have the same homogenized diet worldwide, it would be a really boring world.”
“Sweden has a very strong esthetic background, with attributes like light wood, purity of form and simplicity of the line. Those things are strong elements to build on. There will be a conscious move towards some globalized esthetic, but countries will then realize that everything looks the same, and start looking for something that really sets them apart. Hopefully they’ll go back to their roots, and think about what it is about their own culture that is appealing, and how to capture it in a positive and respectful way. It is going to be a tough thing to do,” says Ronald Kemnitzer.

Derek Ostergard sees globalization as a trap for Sweden’s designers. He admits that Sweden’s minimalist tradition and the relative plain-ness of many designs could fit into the goal of addressing a global audience. ”That is absolutely true, but when you compete in that market, you will always be beaten on price, whether you are Swedish or American or German. We are going to be beaten fast, because they can copy a design on a computer in a few days. They can produce things in China or India that are increasingly equal to, or better than what we produce in the West. If you are seeking to meet those global markets -- and I agree with you that it will work for a while -- you will eventually be caught up, because you can’t compete on the basis of price. Both the Swedes and the rest of us are heading for a collision with that formula.” His alternative? ”Swedes must learn what the French know: You must produce things that reflect your culture; that are based on quality or you will get killed. You can never compete with the labor markets in Asia. It’s not going to happen.”

But there may be more to Swedish design than esthetic sensibility. Sweden may like Apple Computer ride on an impression of being different, not because nobody else can do that, but just because they haven’t done it yet.

Bengt Palmgren, who heads the Umeå School of Design in northern Sweden, says that it is very hard to talk about a "Swedish” or even “Scandinavian” design, when it comes to industrial products. “Industrial designers works for companies that operate on the global market. Cellular phones, cars and technical equipment must function whether it is in Taiwan, the U.S. or in Colombia,” he says, but then suggests that there still is something, maybe a kind of “honesty when it comes to how the material is presented. If you are working in plastics that is what it is. There is this typical striving for simplicity, for purity, a preference for light-colored wood.”

Could there be something in Swedish industrial design that reflects the Swedish society? American trucks used to be rough and “square” with stick shifts that allowed the rough cowboy/driver to show off his skills. In Europe and other places the trucks are automatic, and the driver’s space is similar to a cars. Volvo Trucks has been able to challenge that, based on Sweden’s early interest in ergonomics, and there are signs that American truckers are warming up to the idea of a little convenience while on the road.

Robin Edman is chairman for Svensk Industridesign, a group that represents Sweden’s industrial designers, and is involved with Sweden’s national ”Year of Design” campaign. In his view, what makes Swedish industrial design Swedish, is the fact that it leans towards highly integrated projects and that it often takes a broad social view of building new products. ”It’s much more than bringing out a new physical object. Design can help us make a better society, whether it is improving healthcare, public transportation and many other things that make life easier to live. If you are designing a new light rail train, you are not just thinking about whether it should be blue or white and the shape of it, but of how a person gets to the train, how to cross the street, the lighting at the station, safety, and whether the environment in the car is friendly or scary to children, and if it is easy to use for an 82 year old with a walker.” The ”Year of Design” is an initiative taken by the Swedish government, and one of the goals is to make the public sector a better buyer design wise. The public sector spends 400 billion kronor (ca 50 billion dollars) every year, which to a degree could be used to promote good design. ”We are looking for less elitist attitude to design. If you are planning a new hospital, it is going to be built by private industry, but the result will be a public environment. Will Greta, 82, be met like if she was checking in at a hotel, when she goes to the hospital? In that case, she might feel a little better about the whole thing. and may be able to leave the hospital earlier because she feels good about the visit,” says Robin Edman, who suggests that this extreme focus on the end-user’s needs could be seen as part of today’s Swedish design.
”Integration is typical for Swedish design. We see design as part of a creative process, while other designers in countries may look for a cool new thing, another red chair that nobody can sit in,” he says. ”Of course, we have those in Sweden too, but that is not what we are known for. Some people criticize Sweden for not having star designers, but what we have is a thorough knowledge when it comes to ergonomics and safety. Just look at Volvo, Saab, Bahco and companies like Electrolux and Husqvarna. We have a tradition of making things that are practical and functional as well as beautiful.”

He takes another example.” We are involved in a project at a firehouse in the southern city of Malmö. The goal is to improve the firemen’s equipment, partially to open it up for more women. The designers soon realized that it is impossible for women and hard for men to carry around equipment that weighs 60 pounds. And the helmets with infrared cameras weigh about 9 pounds, which is heavy for both men and women. Design here is not about pretty, but about health and safety. We are good at these things in Sweden,” says Robin Edman of Svensk Industridesign.

Hans Sandberg

The Place Where New Happens

(Article first published in Currents No. 4 2004).

The Medici Effect is a book about innovation in an era where many discoveries happen in-between or outside established fields. Frans Johansson calls these places of discovery “intersections,” and wrote his book to teach us how to analyze and use them. Harvard Business School Books published the book, and soon he had found an audience, including CEO’s of companies like GM, Kodak and Lockheed-Martin.

Frans Johansson protests when I half-jokingly suggest that he is becoming a guru. He doesn’t like the word, but his calendar tells its own story as he finds himself traveling around the world, giving keynote speeches at conferences and talking to top management. His message is clear and very timely. It’s about the benefits of diversity, stepping out of the circle, daring to explore, and daring to be different.

Frans Johansson speaks Swedish with a Gothenburg accent and has a very traditional name, but his look hardly fits that of the stereotypical Swede. (This look is however not quite as typical as foreigners think, as one million Swedes have at least one immigrant parent.)

His mother is of Afro-American and Cherokee decent, and his father is a native of Gothenburg where he was a tent-maker like his father. But Frans Johansson’s father’s real passion was sport fishing, which led him to start the sport fishing magazine Fiskejournalen. It was during a fishing trip to Manheim in Germany that his father met an English teacher who worked at a nearby U.S. military base. The couple settled in Gothenburg, where they had Frans. He grew up in Gothenburg, but left Sweden to attend Brown University where he started a cross-discipline magazine. He was thinking of pursuing a Ph.D., but felt the call of the entrepreneur, which brought him to Baltimore where an aunt of his was a medical researcher at John Hopkins’s University. He and his cousin Christian started a company in her basement and developed and patented an instrument based on his aunt’s research that nurses use to measure a patient’s pain. By then they were 22 years old.

”I loved starting companies, I really loved it, but my passion was definitively not in the healthcare business, so I applied to Harvard Business School instead,” he says. His cousin soon followed him, but within a year they left Harvard to start a software company called Inka. This was during the peak of the Internet boom. It was easy to find financing and they soon had 30 employees, while working for clients like Intel and Lotus.

But the bubble burst in March of 2001, and Johansson found himself with extra time on his hands. ”I woke up one morning and had this idea that you discover new things when you combine disciplines and cultures. But was it really so? It seemed intuitive, but was it really true? And if so, exactly why was that the case? Finally, what does this mean if you want to apply these ideas in real life? What is the difference between innovating within a field compared to if you do it in an intersection? Of course, you could say that I had been working towards this all my life. I realized when I grew up that I was different from most people around me. It was not only the link between Sweden and the United States, but also the issue of black and white. There were plenty of combinations here.”

The Medici Effect is about innovations, but not the gradual stuff, which the author calls directional innovation. He is more interested in breakthroughs, such as Charles Darwin replacing the Biblical creation myth with a scientific explanation, Mike Oldfield blending rock and classical music, Håkan Lans developing groundbreaking products, or chef Marcus Samuelsson creating bold new riffs on Swedish food that didn’t make sense until he did it. They all had found themselves in intersections abound in opportunities, and they didn’t hesitate to grab them.

When people step into an intersection they need to let go of many of their perceptions and prejudices, but it does not mean that you can do without knowledge and expertise. “When you take a Swedish idea abroad, you are letting it intersect with something else, and that is where you can find success. That’s what made it possible for Swedish music to conquer the many parts of the world, and that’s what Marcus Samuelsson did when he turned Aquavit in to a leading restaurant.”

However, not everybody loves intersections. Many people shun the intersections, as can be the case with fundamentalist Christians in the US and fundamentalist Moslems in Iran or Saudi-Arabia. They prefer interpretations of holy texts to exploring intersections with other cultures and ideas. “Well, it’s a choice to be made either as a person, a company or as a society. If you choose to not break new ground or innovate, you may be able to push what you know, but sooner or later, you will stagnate. The world is moving fast, and if you don’t look for intersections, somebody else will. It’s inevitable. The question is not whether it will be done, but by whom.”

Hans Sandberg

Jacob Wallenberg on Sweden’s Economic Future (2004)

(This interview was published in Currents Magazine No 2 2004.)

In Sweden, Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg are known as ”the cousins.” Both were born in 1956 and share the formidable task of steering the vast Wallenberg empire. Marcus is CEO of Investor AB, the nexus of the family’s financial and industrial power, while Jacob is chairman of another bastion of power, the SEB bank, whose history goes back to 1856 when A. O.Wallenberg founded it.

Currents interviewed Jacob Wallenberg, who is also a board member of SACC-USA. To a Swede, the Wallenberg name epitomizes big business, while internationally it often evokes the Rockefellers.But fact is that the forces of globalization have diminished the role of dynasties such as the Rockefellers and the Wallenbergs.Their power is certainly more challenged in today’s world, but the Wallenberg family still exerts strong influence over a wide range of corporate giants; companies like ABB, Astra Zeneca, Atlas Copco, Ericsson, Electrolux, Gambro, Investor, Saab, Scania, SEB, SKF, Stora Enso, and Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), just to name a few. This “Wallenberg sphere” captures about 40 percent of the value of all companies traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

It is an open question if one of “the cousins” will eventually emerge as the dominant force in the family. In the meantime, it is actually Claes Dahlbäck, a veteran Wallenberg executive, who holds the reins as chairman of Investor. Jacob and Marcus sit on many corporate boards , including Investor’s, but Jacob’s home base is SEB, while Marcus’ is Investor.

Last November (2003), the social democratic Swedish government invited representatives of the business community to join in a discussion about economic growth. Since then, many business leaders have grown increasingly frustrated with the outcome of the ”growth talks.” Currents took this as a natural starting point for our interview.

CURRENTS: What are the conditions for economic growth in Sweden? Is it enough if Ericsson makes a comeback?
JACOB WALLENBERG: As you know, the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise has for the past few years communicated a very clear picture that Sweden’s standard of living has slipped. We have gone from being number two or four in the 1970’s to number 17 a couple of years ago. The challenge for Sweden is to improve growth in the business sector, so as to provide the necessary economic basis for an improved living standard.To do this,we need to address many issues, such as a focus on research and development, education, labor laws, and taxes that run the risk of pushing talented or successful people abroad. There is no single answer to th is challenge, and no single company can solve this problem. It t akes the joint effort of Sweden’s businesses, small as well as large.

What needs to be done?
I’m talking about long - term projects that generate increased growth over time. This is a competitive game where you have to attract capital, foreign direct investments, etc., into Sweden.

A lot of foreign companies invest in Sweden despite the tax system. Isn’t that paradoxical?
No. Companies will invest in Sweden, as it is a market of 9 million people. I’m talking about investment decisions made on the margin, about investing in research and development, venture capital investments, investments in private equity, and in companies.You then have to provide an environment that is as inviting as possible for foreign investors, and I think that we have a way to go before we can get back to the top of the standards-of-living list again.

What would make a foreign investor think twice before going into Sweden?
Sweden has, generally speaking, a high level of technical knowledge, international experience, and a very industrious and successful base to work from. We have a number of things that attract potential foreign investors. My only point is that when you relate to marginal investors, who are making decisions whether to invest in Sweden, Finland, Norway, or somewhere else in Europe, you simply need to look your best.

How important is the marginal investor overall?
Long term, he is certainly very important. Scandinavia is at the outskirts of Europe.We are at a disadvantage for geographical reasons, and have always known that. To attract investors, you therefore have to be better than the others.

Sweden has had very few new big companies started over the past 50 years. Are we going to push the old industries to get better, or look to new ones?
You cannot ignore the fact that the companies you call old are significant contributors to the Swedish economy, and that we could not survive without them. The challenge is to complement them with emerging technologies .Take SEB as an example. Over 25 percent of our retail business is conducted over the Internet, which is a meaningful number. You need to combine the old with the new, and have faith in new technologies.

The Swedish government’s latest longterm economic study found it hard to support the welfare system in the future, since a large and growing part of the labor market’s ”core” members prefers to study rather than to work, or “perceives themselves as unable to work.” Do we Swedes have the attitudes we need to compete in todays' global market?
Yes, I know. It’s a European attitude. The provision of social welfare is more highly prioritized here than in the United States, and the Americans therefore work more hours per worker and year compared to the Europeans. This is an obvious drawback from a competitive view.

Could we see this as a matter of consumer preference? Europeans choose to consume more publicly via a combination of monetary and political means, while the Americans choose to work the long hours, outsource the cleaning and laundry, and order in take-out food? The Europeans cook at home instead.

( Laughing) It starts with attitude. The great majority of the Americans believe that if their neighbors can be successful, so can they, and they are willing to work for that goal. In many parts of Europe, the attitude is somewhat different. The belief in success is not as strong, and people therefore prioritize other areas of life. This choice is made easier thanks to the social safety net, which is significant in many parts of Europe.

So it is a matter of an incentive structure?
No, at the core it is a matter of attitude, which over time grew into two different systems. Neither is perfect, but the fact of the matter is that Americans are more productive and therefore more competitive than the Europeans.

Which is the key issue?
Competitiveness, which brings us back to the Lisbon Agenda (for the EU).The whole point is to make Europe the most competitive economy in the world, even more competitive than the American economy. European leaders are not accepting the system’s shortcomings.
We have to find ways to compete fully with the Americans. Otherwise we will continue to have lower economic growth rates to the detriment of our living standard.

We have an enlarged EU and the Chinese market is important to some companies in your group? The outlook must have changed a lot over the past ten years or so?
Absolutely! China’s appearance on the world market has been an important ingredient in world growth, and most multinational Swedish companies play an important role in China. That goes for Ericsson, Atlas Copco, Tetra Laval, Volvo Trucks... the list is very long.
China has been the area of growth while other parts of Asia have floundered. It has become increasingly important for the living standard of many Europeans and Americans. China is increasingly important, both as a buyer and a competitor, and they are rapidly becoming more sophisticated.

And they do push education...
Yes, they are pushing education big time.

We also have growing new markets in the Eastern Europe. Will these and China change the outlook for the Swedish industry? Will it affect its interest in the U.S.?
China will of course take away some of the energy, but I don’t know if it will be at the expense of investments in Europe or the United States. I can’t judge that. But over all, I think that we all benef it from the globalization. China and the other markets offer improved opportunities for growth, and we all need growth.

Is there any reason to be concerned that its businesses will start to outsource a lot more to places like Shenzhen or Shanghai?
It is not outsourcing as such. It is production. China has proved itself to be a stable place for production and good quality. They are very competitive piecewise, and quality is not a significant issue today, which it was 15 years ago.
I am not concerned as a matter of principle, but if these changes come too quickly, which I think is part of the concern in the United States, you will be under some pressure if you are a politician.

Do the European or Swedish welfare systems — whatever you think about their size — provide a cushion that makes outsourcing less dramatic?
Short term, yes, but the important thing is to keep developing a country or a region so that you don’t have to close down large parts of your production. It is better to move the production piecemeal and bring in high-tech production in the meantime as a replacement.
That’s my whole point about Sweden, and that’s why we have to focus on research and development, education and so on. We have to create a high-value added environment and focus on production that can replace the lower value-added production, which for competitive reasons will move to low-cost areas.

During the Internet boom, suddenly it was cool in Sweden to start a company. But then the bubble burst and we had all these scandals such as Enron, and in Sweden, the Skandia affair. Does this hurt the entrepreneurial spirit?
First, let’s make one thing clear. You can’t compare Skandia to WorldCom and Enron, which are subject to crim inal investi gations. That is incorrect, certainly as it stands today.

But it still seems to be affecting the public mind?
( Laughing) Well, it is not the same kind of scandal. One is about criminal acts, while the other is not. In my book, there is a fairly wide difference between the two. We have an ethical and moral debate; we’ve seen serious problems in Europe and in the U. S. There are always people that will do bad things, but that doesn’t mean that everybody is bad.

Is there a problem of greed, and has it hurt the entrepreneurial spirit?
Human nature makes people want to make money. Adam Smith was very clear on that when he was talking about greed. The important thing is to channel that drive into something positive and that is indeed what Adam Smith tried to argue. This still stands today. Why else are so many people in the U. S. working so hard to make money, if it wasn’t for a drive of some nature? Does that drive away the entrepreneurial spirit?
No, I don’t think so! The entrepreneur has the same drive, but he has a very special skill, that is to make things happen.That skill is not less ened because somebody shows signs of bad morals. I don’t think so.

The American dream is based on the notion that with hard work, anyone can make it. But with things like Enron, you may start to think you need a buddy to make it — it’s not enough to be an entrepreneur.
Sure, but those guys are in cou rt , and a few of them are on the way to prison. They were caught and tried and sentenced. The enforcement is the key here. I certainly agree with you that the individual has to be able to trust the system. If someone is caught doing something that is against the law, he should be punished accordingly. This is the key and the Americans have been very clear about that.

Finally, a question about the Swedish-American business link. How important is it for Sweden’s business? What about it is so important? Is it cultural exchange, knowledge, connections?
No, it is the fact that the U. S. is the world’s largest economy. U. S. technological trends, market, consumer and political trends are key to understanding what happens in the world. These trends will over time show up in the rest of the world. Every international business person needs to spend time in the U. S. and try to understand it in order to gain a broader picture of events that affect you and your company. It is not sufficient to, for example,  only follow European media. You need a broader perspective.

First transatlantic surgery

On September 7, French and American surgeons performed the first-ever surgery across the Atlantic Ocean. Sitting in a New York hospital, they removed the gall bladder of a 68-year-old French woman, using a computerized surgical robot connected to a transatlantic fiber optic link. “It was a bit difficult to explain to my patient in Strasbourg that I was going to New York to operate on her,” said professor Jacques Marescaux of the University of Strasbourg.

Jacques Marescaux and Michael Gagner of New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital belong to an elite group of surgeons that are pioneering a new type of medicine – robot surgery. They use sophisticated robots to perform more efficient operations, which in principle can be done from anywhere in the world, hence the name telesurgery. ”In the future, using satellite clinics, we will be able to operate on patients in poor countries, onboard ships at sea, remote islands, the Antarctica, and even in a space station – anywhere where there is a lack of experienced experts,” says Dr. Gagner.

Before this operation, few experts thought it was possible to perform surgery over more than a few hundred kilometers, because of the time delay when electronic signals travel between the surgeon’s workstation, and his robotic counterpart. This was a real problem during trial operations on pigs, but was later solved when France Telecom provided the scientists with a dedicated fiber optic connection.

The entire operation took 54 minutes, of which 16 was used to prepare the patient in Strasbourg. Drs. Gagner and Marceaux took turns in directing the robot using two thin, pen-shaped controls. A third surgeon was at hand in Strasbourg ready to take over in case anything went wrong, but did not need to take action.

With telesurgery, the patient can leave the hospital in only two days, and has a good chance of recovering faster than after traditional surgery, since the robot’s incisions are smaller, and there is less bleeding. Authorities in the EU and Canada have already cleared these kind of robotic systems for human surgery, while the more conservative American authorities are still evaluating them. There are also a number of legal aspects that may slow down the introduction of robot surgeons. Who bears the responsibility if anything goes wrong? The manufacturer of the robot, or the doctor? And from which country?

“(Telesurgery) is a new science where robots act as the new interface between the doctor and patient,” says Dr. Gagner, who intends to start a professional association of robot surgeons. Asked whether he has any doubts about the use of robots surgery, he says that he hopes that there will always be a doctor standing behind the controls.

Hans Sandberg

Hawaii: Testbed for Telemedicine

(This reportage was published by the Metro newspaper syndicate in 2001.)

“We are geographically challenged,” says Dr. Greigh Hirata.
 
A remote ultrasound examination of a pregnant woman.

Dr. Hirata at his telemedicine station. Photo: Hans Sandberg

The last thing a woman who is going through a difficult pregnancy wants to do, is fly to another city to have her ultrasound taken - but until recently, those Hawaiians living far from Honolulu had little choice. “We are geographically challenged,” says Dr. Greigh Hirata, an expert on high-risk pregnancies. Over the last few years, Hawaii has invested in telemedicine, allowing specialists to “see” their patients via videoconferences and the Internet. The goal is to make Hawaii a center of “tele-health” in the Pacific Ocean.

Hawaii is proud of its health care system, and the fact that 85 percent of its citizens have health insurance. Oahu -- the home of Honolulu, as well as 75 percent of the state’s 1.2 million inhabitants -- has several large, modern hospitals - including the huge army veteran’s hospital, Tripler Medical Center. But while most medical specialists are concentrated in Honolulu, a quarter of the state’s population is spread out over seven other major islands.

Each year, some 3,000 Hawaiian women experience complicated pregnancies, and many of them consult the Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children in Honolulu. The center’s Fetal Diagnostic Clinic is lead by Dr. Hirata, a firm believer in telemedicine. Dr. Hirata travels regularly to visit with his patients on Maui, Kauai and the Big Island (Hawaii,) but if there is an emergency, the patient would usually do the traveling – something that telemedicine could change.

“We want to spare our patients the expense,” says Dr. Hirata. “The patient and her husband usually have to take a whole day off from work, fly out here, rent a car, and so forth,” he says. Patients come to Kapiolani from as far away as Guam - an eight-hour flight that costs $1,500. “When these people get here, everything could look perfectly normal, or maybe we have to tell them that there is nothing we can do, because it is a lethal birth defect. It would be better if we could do this all via tele-ultrasound,” Hirata adds.

This and other Hawaiian telemedicine programs are paid for by a combination of federal money and private donations. Kapiolani only needed to raise half of the $1.2 million it needed for its tele-ultrasound network - that today reaches seven remote clinics: two on Oahu, one on Maui, one on Kauai, and three on the Big Island.

On a Wednesday morning in August, Dr. Hirata has an appointment with a 33-year old patient at a clinic in Hilo, the capital city of Hawaii’s Big Island. He consults with the attending physician via videoconference, while the nurse prepares the patient. Sitting in front of two high-resolution monitors, he can see the remote office and the ultrasound images. Because of the high-speed connection, the picture and sound are of good quality.

It takes a while getting used to working with video conferencing equipment, but he feels that the live connection makes it easy to tell the local doctor exactly how he wants to position the instruments. He can study the chambers of the baby’s heart in detail, and listen to its heartbeat as clear as if he was in Hilo. In this case, both the mother and her baby were fine, which means that a trip to Honolulu would have been an unnecessary expense.

Dr. Hirata dreams of expanding the program to even more remote locations, like American Samoa, 3,700 km to the southwest, and Guam, 6,000 km to the south. “Over time we hope to expand the service to the entire South Pacific. The need is definitively there, since Guam, for example, has only a few obstetricians but a very high pregnancy rate,” he says. He is not quite sure if tele-ultrasound would work in all places, but believes in genetic counseling through videoconferences, and wants to get more pediatric cardiologists involved - a rarity on many smaller islands.

Col. Donald Person is medical director of the U.S. Army’s Pacific Island Health Care Project, which is headquartered at Tripler Medical Center in Honolulu – not far from Pearl Harbor. He has been involved in providing medical services to the half million people who live on U.S. islands in the Pacific.


Donald Person medical director of the U.S. Army’s Pacific Island Health Care Project. Photo: Hans Sandberg

To get the hospital’s telemedicine project -- named Akamai -- started, Tripler provided four remote hospitals with computers and communications links, costing about $14,000 each. Funding came from a grant from the National Science Foundation in1998, and soon after they began providing free medical care to Pacific islanders, as long as their cases could be used to further research and education. “We are now working over five time zones, from the island of Yap in the east, to the Republic of Palau in the west,” says Person, and to date, the hospital has about 1,850 telemedicine patients in their database.

Tripler is also involved in futuristic high-tech projects -- like long-distance radiation treatments using satellites that connect distant hospitals with Maui’s military supercomputer center -- but most of Col. Persons work is done via the Internet. Local medical officers and doctors send e-mail and pictures, or upload their cases into a database, which Col. Person and his colleagues regularly visit. “This lady from the Marshall Islands thought she was pregnant, but it turned out that she had a 90 lb. benign ovarian tumor,” he says, pulling a patient from his database.

Many of the islands of Polynesia are very poor and sparsely populated, and their hospitals lack medical experts, supplies and medicines. For example, the island of Yap got electricity for the first time in 2001, thanks to a $100,000 gift from France. They put in solar panels to give power to 50 homes, which can now have a radio and two lights each.

For the local medical staff, the connection to the specialists in Honolulu provides not only critical medical advice, but also a means of education. “It is a wonderful exchange,” says Person. “Being able to talk to specialists, and other colleagues makes them feel not nearly as isolated.” And it’s not just one doctor that they can talk to, but hospitals full of specialists. “A little girl fell out of a second story window in Yap - probably the only such building in town. She fractured her femur, and I forwarded her information to an orthopedic surgeon, who didn’t like the position of the traction,” says Person. Thanks to his advice, she was treated at home, and Tripler saved between $24,000 and $40,000 in evacuation costs. Overall, he estimates that the Akamai project has saved his hospital up to $8 million over the three and a half year since it started.


Daniel Davies and Rodney Moriyama from Queens Medical Center in Honolulu.
Photo: Hans Sandberg

Drs. Daniel Davies and Rodney Moriyama from Queens Medical Center in Honolulu are developing a business model to make telemedicine profitable for medical centers. Dr. Davies, who is the head of the hospital’s Department of Medicine, also runs a small company that developed “eCare” – an Internet-based “home nursing” service which helps patients manage their health in-between visits to the doctor. “What they do at home is probably more important than what happens during their visit with the doctor,” he says. Patients can register their preferences online, and take Internet “classes” in self-care.

“This self-monitoring includes sending reminders to patient’s cell-phones and pagers,” he says. The system can also use wireless local area networks to connect to the patient’s home or office. By having fewer face-to-face visits, nurses can handle more cases, and the software is designed so that she can pull up information in an interactive session with the patient and drop it right onto their desktop.

Thanks to a state telemedicine initiative, some Hawaiians are now able to taking tele-home nursing to an even higher level. Using in-home, or clinic-based blood pressure/pulse meters, stethoscopes connected to the Internet, and small Web cameras, patients can send their blood pressure, pulse rate, and heart and lung sounds -- as well as high-resolution digital images of their wounds -- directly to the specialist they need in Honolulu. If the results are alarming, a software agent will immediately alert a physician.

Advances in telemedicine are good news for this natural paradise, which depends mainly on its tourists, and needs alternative industries. Frank Fukunaga, a telemedicine consultant, is betting on a high-tech future for Hawaii: “The market is too small here, which is why we need to find ways to export our expertise.” Telemedicine could turn Hawaii into a regional (medical) center, eventually serving the entire South Pacific, Japan - and even Asia’s emerging economic giant, China.

Hans Sandberg

Cables Connect the Tropics

It was Governor Benjamin Caetano of Hawaii who launched the state’s telemedicine program back in 1997. “We realized that we were just a dot in the Pacific region. We were isolated, and needed a high-quality telecommunications infrastructure, so that we could communicate with the rest of the world,” says Frank Fukunaga, a consultant at Tripler Medical Center in Honolulu. “As it turned out, Hawaii had an abundance of trans-Pacific fiber optic cables running through the state,” says Fukunaga, who played a key role in the telemedicine program as the state’s leading information technology-official during the 1990’s.

Fiber optics and satellite links helped bolster Hawaii’s information technology industry, and subsequent distance learning and telemedicine projects. In 1994, a telecommunications network called STAN (State of Hawaii tele-health Access Network,) was established, and now connects 16 hospitals and 7 clinics on 22 Pacific islands. “The over 125,000 veterans in the Pacific Region are the largest beneficiaries - we have veterans in places like Guam and Samoa, and they had to fly to get service,” says Fukunaga. “Why not use technology to increase their access to health care, improve quality, and in the long run even reduce costs?” he adds.


Frank Fukunaga, a hawaiian expert at telemedicine.
Photo: Hans Sandberg


Long distance videoconferencing between doctors and patients was initially used, but it was found by many to be expensive and cumbersome to use: “We tried interactive videoconferencing in the early 1990’s between Hawaii and the Marshall Islands -- where the missile command has a very fancy system -- but it wasn’t helping those people out much, and it was exceedingly expensive,” says Col. Donald A Person of Honolulu-based Tripler Medical Center. “We realized that we didn’t need any of the bells and whistles – we could do almost everything using still photos (of the patients,)” he adds.

Sharing Col. Person’s skeptical view of videoconferencing are Drs. Daniel Davies and Rodney Moriyama of Queens Medical Center in Honolulu, who are instead trying to develop easy-to-use Internet-based applications. “We had an emergency videoconferencing system between Molokai General Hospital and our emergency room here. The technology worked fine, but nobody used it,” says Dr. Davies. “Nobody knew where the equipment was, and when I went looking for it, I found it in a closet covered in cobwebs, and a mop leaning on it,” says Dr. Davis, noting that the last thing doctor’s want is to work with a technical person beside them.

But even before the Internet -- which can now be accessed locally on remote islands for under $30 a month -- there was a “tele”-medicine of sorts: the telephone. “Part of the problem working by phone is that long distance phone calls are very expensive in this region - $5 to $10 dollars per minute. And islands who don’t have money for medicine certainly don’t have the money for long distance phone bills,” says Person. “Besides, the telephone would also sometimes disconnect, and we were sometimes unable to get back to them the same day. The Internet has cut through all of that,” he adds.

Hans Sandberg

Mauna Kea’s Amazing Gazing

(Syndicated article for the Metro newspaper group).

The building that hosts the Gemini North telescope.
It's twin sibling sits on top of a mountain in Chile.
                                                        Photo: Hans Sandberg


At 13,796 feet, not much grows and the air is mostly clear. 
                                                                  Photo: Hans Sandberg

There is probably no better place on Earth for stargazing than on the summit of Hawaii’s Mauna Kea (Hawaiian for “white mountain.”) The long dormant volcano climbs 4,205 meters (13,796 feet) over the Pacific Ocean on the Big Island of Hawaii, and its clear and stable atmosphere has attracted the largest collection of telescopes in the world. Giants such as the Keck twin observatories, Gemini, and Subaru, are there to help us understand the birth of planets, stars and galaxies, and to search for celestial objects so far away that their faint light may reveal secrets about the beginning of time.

The island of Hawaii is the biggest and most southern of the state’s eight islands. It’s twice as large as all of the others combined, hence the nickname - “The Big Island.” It is also the youngest -- and still growing -- as nearby Kilauea pours huge amounts of molten lava into the sea on the island’s southern shore. Mauna Kea has not erupted in 3,000 years however, which explains why eleven countries dared over the last four decades to spend more than a billion dollars building thirteen telescopes on it’s summit.

Way up there, astronomers and their expensive telescopes may be safe from eruptions, but not necessarily from Mother Nature. It is not uncommon for winter storms to deliver winds reaching over 160 km (100 miles) per hour, sometimes dumping a thick layer of snow on the volcano’s peak. Most of the time however, it is not heavy winds, but the height of Mauna Kea itself -- with its cold and thin air -- that threatens human life, as well as most other life forms.

“If you drop anything when you are exiting the car, don’t pick it up,” says Peter Michaud, a press and community relations manager for the Gemini Observatory, which runs two of the most sophisticated telescopes in the world – one on Mauna Kea, the other in Chile. With 40 percent less oxygen to breathe, bending down can lead to fainting.

The trip from Hilo to Mauna Kea starts on Saddle Road – a roller coaster-like ride that becomes a bit nauseating after driving on it for an hour. Halfway to the other side of the island, another small road continues upward to the Onizuka Center for International Astronomy. At 2,800 meters (9,300 feet) above sea level, this quaint visitor’s center is named after the Hawaiian astronaut who perished when the space shuttle “Challenger” exploded in 1986, but is also known to the Hawaiians as Hale Pohaku (“stone house”). The view is stunning during the day, and evening stargazers are in for a treat – seeing the Milky Way as never before. Most tourists shy away from driving the extra 1400 meters up to Observatory Hill, which is at the end of a steep, narrow, eight-mile dirt road, and can be treacherous at night.

Since both the visitor’s center and the summit are open to the public, some experienced off-road drivers do take their four-by-fours up to the top (most car rental companies explicitly prohibit taking their vehicles anywhere near Mauna Kea,) but not before pausing for at least one hour at the Onizuka Center to allow the body to adjust to the high altitude. A dedicated weather and road condition telephone hotline is updated each day for potential visitors. Hale Pohaku also has a lodge that sleeps 72, and is used for astronomers and staffers who work on the summit during the night – so that they’ll have a place to rest during the day without having to repeat the altitude adjustment over and over again.

To prevent altitude sickness, it’s suggested that visitors don’t smoke, drink alcohol or coffee -- or go scuba diving -- the day before, and eat no heavy meals right before the ascent. Drinking a lot of water is also necessary to prevent severe headaches. Warm clothing (including hats and gloves) is a must, and like airline pilots who are exposed to strong sunlight in the upper atmosphere, extra strong sunglasses (preferably with UV-filters,) and sunscreen with a factor of at least 15, is needed.

It’s a lot to remember, especially for an oxygen-starved brain. Michaud warns that people become forgetful sometimes, and wander off aimlessly. That is, until they lose their breath, and their heart starts pounding like that of an 85-year old. A photographer visiting the summit admits to opening his camera without rewinding the film while on the summit, thereby ruining his entire photo shoot.

The landscape at the summit is completely barren, except maybe for black, gray, and rust colored stones. There are no trees, no bushes, no visible vegetation or animals - but for a stray mountain goat. The area is often compared to the planet Mars, and in fact, NASA used the area to train its Mars Lander equipment. Looking down, one can see several copper red cinder cones shooting up from the steep lava slopes. And peeking out from the clouds in the distance is the active volcano Mauna Loa (of macadamia nut fame,) and Haleakala (“House of Sun,”) a 3,049 meter (10,000 ft.) high volcano on the neighbor island of Maui.

Once the sun sets, the temperature quickly approaches the freezing level -- even during the summer months -- as there are few clouds to lock in the heat. This is good news for astronomers however, who would if possible, prefer do all of their observing from the crisp clarity of outer space.

Sitting above 40 percent of the Earth’s atmosphere, Observation Hill has few clouds, and benefits from strict local laws against light pollution on the sparsely populated island. Its location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean also creates an unusually stable and clean atmosphere (something that may not be obvious as you drive through the Kona district on the island’s west coast, where coffee growers complain that ashes from ongoing eruptions cloud the sky and block the sun.)

“There is no getting around the fact that the Earth’s atmosphere is a pain to have to work through,” says Matt Mountain, director of the Gemini Observatory. But if space observation has to be earthbound, Mauna Kea is the place to be.


Hans Sandberg (at Mauna Kea)

Stairway to the Stars

(Syndicated article for the Metro newspaper group).


Some of the telescopes at Mauna Kea's peak.

Interest in building an astronomical center on Hawaii caught on in the 1950’s, but the location of choice was Maui’s Haleakala, which had one thing the Big Island’s Mauna Kea did not have -- a road to the top. A solar observatory was built, but it soon became clear that Haleakala was not ideal, as clouds reached its summit, and its crater sometimes filled with fog that spilled over. Surrounded by fog, the scientists looked outward, and across the Pacific waters saw Mauna Kea rising tall above the clouds.

It took a lot more than clear air and a tall mountain to make a home for telescopes however, all of which is detailed in Barry Parker’s 1994 book Stairway to the Stars. Building on the mighty White Mountain took money and politics, as well as daring individuals willing to take risks. And in the case of Mauna Kea, tragedy also played a role, as the nearby city of Hilo was almost totally destroyed by a huge tidal wave on May 22, 1960.

With its capital city’s downtown in ruins, the mayor of Hilo began to look for new ways to generate income and jobs. Astronomy was one solution, and the governor of Hawaii was soon convinced to fund the building of a road up to Mauna Kea’s summit. (This decision would later translate into hundreds of new jobs and $80 million annually to Hawaii’s economy.)

The first big telescope to open on Observatory Hill was the 2.23-meter (88-inch) telescope built by the University of Hawaii, which opened in 1970, but wasn’t fully operational until 1976. In 1979, a 3.6 meter Canada-France-Hawaii telescope went into operation, followed by several more - including both infrared and radio telescopes.


The Keck Twins at Mauna Kea.  Photo: Hans Sandberg.

But the project that put Mauna Kea on the world map was the Keck observatory. This revolutionary giant telescope had a “honeycomb” mirror with a diameter of 10 meters (33 feet). Such a large disk would have been almost impossible to build and operate using the technology of the time: a single mirror. Keck designer Jerry Nelson instead opted for 36 smaller mirrors, which would all work together as one. To do this, it was necessary to develop a highly innovative system that could change the shape of every single mirror segment continuously, and then align them with extreme precision. This technology is called active optics (adjusting the shape of the mirrors.) By combining active optics with another new technology: adaptive optics (where computers calculate disturbances in the Earth’s atmosphere and “correct” them by continuously adjusting the telescope’s mirrors and lenses,) Keck began a new era for astronomers everywhere.

Behind the $76 million Keck project was the University of California and Caltech (California Institute of Technology,) and the Keck Foundation. Later on, the fund paid for a second Keck-telescope -- which today sits next to the first. The idea is to get them to function as a single telescope, thereby doubling the power. This technique -- which is common in radio astronomy -- is called interferometer. Since it is however much, much harder to perfectly match up optical images than it is radio signals, this goal has yet to be completed.

One problem that the new telescopes did not solve was the shortage of telescope time. Two-thirds of the observation requests made by astronomers were routinely turned down, which is why some of the world’s leading associations for astronomy proposed building two new large telescopes – one in the northern hemisphere and one in the south. The National Science Foundation (NSF), which funds most of the industry’s basic research in the US, financed half of the $176 million needed to build twin telescopes in Hawaii and Chile. Six other countries also funded the Gemini plan: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the UK.

Like Keck, Gemini broke new ground in many ways. They decided to use a single piece of glass, but a much thinner disk than those of previous generations. The 8.1 meter mirror is flexible, and is coated with a super-reflective silver solution, instead of aluminum. “Our thin mirror, which is basically a twenty-ton contact lens, no longer relies only on glass and steel to keep it aligned. Behind it, there are 120 computers, which constantly monitor the shape of the mirror, and adjust it as it moves across the sky,” says Matt Mountain, director of the Gemini Observatory on Mauna Kea. The result is a telescope that in some respects can match both the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Keck twins – a “fly-by-wire airplane” as Mountain calls it.

When completed in late 2001, Chile’s Gemini South will work with Hawaii’s Gemini North to give researchers a chance to study the entire hemisphere from remote locations - via super fast computer networks. “For example, the Magellan Cloud, our nearest galaxy, is not visible from the north. The center of that galaxy is very low down in north, and we have to look at a lot of atmosphere to see it, while in the south it goes straight overhead,” says Mountain. So theoretically, a team of observers -- one sitting in Brazil, one in Washington, and one in Hawaii -- can collaborate over a network using both telescopes. “It will be a long night if we get the right overlap, because you can get one twelve hour night, and then another seven hour (night) for certain parts of the sky,” he adds.

Gemini is designed to look far into the universe, and is especially good at capturing infrared light. Though infrared heat radiation is invisible to the human eye, it is tremendously important for modern astronomy. Infrared telescopes for example, can see right through the vast, dark clouds that obscure our view, and allow astronomers see the universe at its very early beginnings. “You can see into the heart of stellar nurseries, and can catch information about planets and planetary disks that you couldn’t catch (before.) You can also see into the heart of our own galaxy - to the galactic center where there is probably a black hole hidden,” says Mountain.

As telescopes get bigger and optics more precise, demands on the rest of the system increase as well. The machinery that moves the telescope and the dome, must do so without causing any vibrations. In an almost surreal act, Gemini’s 673-metric ton shiny silver dome rotates almost without a sound. Vertical “doors” open to expose the sky, while the rest of the dome splits horizontally in half and rises up in order to circulate the air. Another impressive sight is the cable room below the telescope, which holds its “spinal cord” in the form of hundreds of wires nested into dozens of thick bundles.

For an astronomer, it is essential to have good resolution as you focus on smaller and smaller objects. To give an idea of how sensitive the Gemini telescope is, Gemini’s Peter Michaud explains that it would be like seeing a pair of headlights on a car driving on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco from the top of Mauna Kea 2,000 miles away. “That is assuming however, that the Earth had no atmosphere, and was completely flat,” adds Michaud.

As for the future, Matt Mountain foresees a new generation of 30 to 100-meter telescopes, one of which is actually slated to be built on Mauna Kea. This enormous telescope will however, be Mauna Kea’s last, he adds.

Hans Sandberg

“Garage Attendant” Astronomy

(Syndicated by Metro World News in 2001)

Three of the more than dozen telescopes at Mauna Kea.
                                                             Photo: Hans Sandberg

New technology for observing the sky is rapidly changing the way astronomers work. The lonely genius standing by his telescope and smoking a pipe is harder and harder to find these days, as satellite links and fiber optic data networks make it possible to use telescopes from afar. For example, most of the astronomers using the Keck twin observatories do their viewing from the city of Waimea, on the north shore of the Big Island. And Gemini North’s telescope is operated from its base camp in nearby Hilo, as well as from the top of Mauna Kea.

“It is changing the way we do science. Not only can we access these big telescopes over the net, but we also have access to huge databases from other areas,” says Matt Mountain, director of the Gemini observatory. “Sociologically it’s a radically different way of doing astronomy, which makes some of the traditional astronomers uncomfortable – they even call remote observing ‘garage attendant astronomy,’” says Mountain. He compares Gemini to the Hubble Space Telescope, where an astronomer submits an application, and someone on Gemini’s staff does the observing (when the conditions are just right.) Besides, it is easier and cheaper for Mountain’s staff and visiting astronomers to remain on sea level in the city of Hilo, rather than 13,796 feet up.

In the future, even amateur astronomers and school children may get to peek over the shoulders of astronomers. Mountain dreams of the day when school classes visiting New York’s Rose Center for Earth & Space will hook-up with Mauna Kea’s telescopes via the internet. “Astronomy has got to get more accessible - people are fascinated by it,” he says.

Hans Sandberg

Half Mann, Half Computer

(Syndicated article for the Metro newspaper group).


Steve Mann in his lab at Toronto U 2001.


Steve Mann has been wearing his computer for decades. He even wore it on his wedding day, recording the ceremony literally from the groom’s point of view, with the help of a tiny, head-mounted camera. “I have created this machine…or kind of myself as a machine,” says the eccentric professor.

Professor Mann’s students at the engineering school at Toronto University call themselves “Photoborgs,” (derived from the “Borgs” of Star Trek fame whose computers were permanently implanted into their bodies.) But alas, Mann’s wearable computers are taken off sometimes - before showering or going to bed, for example. “It feels funny not having it on,” says aspiring Photoborg, and research student, James Fung,

Mann’s wearable computer is worn as a pair of glasses and is connected to a processor in the form of a “fanny pack” - or attached to an item of clothing. It takes commands by voice, or via a handheld input-device, and displays information either on tiny screens inside the eyewear, or projects it directly into the user’s retina.

It may sound impractical, but many companies are already using wearable computers, especially for their blue collar and service employees. Costing between US$3,000 and $6,000, these small and powerful computers are expensive, but there are many situations where donning a hands-free, mobile, and wearable computer could be money well spent.

Take, for example, the airplane mechanic who is working in a tight space and needs to check something in a manual. A laptop computer would be hard to juggle next to a jet engine, and besides, it would delay the repair. The same thing goes for the surgeon performing a complex operation. Here a wearable computer could display critical data -- like MRI images -- right in front of the doctor’s eyes, so that she can continue without having to put down the scalpel.

Using Mann’s experimental ENGware system (read: Electronic News Gathering Wearable) a journalist could draw on his news organization’s resources while out on the field. His editors could instantly send information about related people, events, and places directly into his view.

Mann built his first wearable system three years after Apple launched it’s personal computer -- the Apple II -- and the same year as IBM came out with its first PC.
“Many people consider what I built in 1981 to be the first true wearable computer,” Mann says.

Using a cathode ray tube from a camera viewfinder, and a small TV tube, he created a “personal viewing system” that was hands-free, and had a display that could be viewed while walking around. “It also used wireless communications,” he adds.

Since then, he has more or less lived each day with various models of the contraption, something he has written about in a new book, soon to be published by Random House. “The whole idea of attaching a computer to the body is really strange. When I did this, people thought it was totally crazy,” he explained during an interview in his lab.

On July 5th, he and the student Photoborgs celebrated the opening of an art exhibit dedicated to his wearable computers at one of downtown Toronto’s trendy art galleries, TPW. The fact that he exhibits his inventions as artwork, is only logical to Steve Mann. His first wearable was inspired by a desire to see the world in a new light. These high-tech “rose-colored glasses” that could change the color of selected objects in his view. “I was interested in seeing things differently - in getting different interpretations of the world,” he says.

Looking into Mann’s eyes, it seems as if a camera lens has taken the place of his right pupil, and he talks as if it actually has. (It’s only an optical illusion.) The camera in his “EyeTap” system sits close to his nose, capturing the images in front of him. These images are then sent to an on-body computer, where it can be modified, added to, or subtracted from, before a final “virtual” picture is projected into his eye. He refers to this as a “mediated reality.”

The capability to delete objects that we see everyday can be useful if, for example, advertisements are perceived as an eyesore. In the future, a wearable computer can be programmed to replace the “Marlboro Man” on the billboard with something more to one’s liking – be it Mona Lisa, or Claudia Schiffer.

“Your view is already muddled with all these billboards blocking your view as you walk down the street,” says Mann. “You can’t see the truth because it’s obscured by all these lies. By putting on the glasses you can see your own reality,” he adds.

The same principle for “mediated reality” that lies behind Mann’s EyeTap can be found in his “EarTap” system, which works in a similar fashion, but using sound instead of light. Another related invention is “Blind Vision,” the idea of which is to help blind people navigate by using radar, and a vibrating “VibraVest.” As the radar senses nearby objects, it sends “warning” vibrations to the wearer of the vest.
Mann claims that the radar can even detect if a pickpocket is approaching, by evaluating the speed and pattern of movement.

Few people understood this Canadian prodigy back in high school. He stripped camcorders for parts to include in weird looking hockey helmets with antennas, and had dozens of wires coming out of his eyeglasses, only to disappear under his jacket behind his neck.

He attended Toronto’s McGregor University, but later transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). But even MIT’s nerd-laden Media Lab found it hard to accept Mann, who couldn’t part with his wearables, not even for a day. “I was the first person to broadcast my life (from a wearable computer) on the Web in 1994,” he says.

Eventually the idea caught on. He co-founded the Wearable Group at the Lab and his inventions became something of a showpiece. Late in 1997, the Media Lab held a glitzy fashion show with professional models - using sexy, but non-working mock-up wearables.

In 1999, he parted ways with the Media Lab and returned to Toronto, where he now runs the show. The Media Lab continues its wearable program, and the Lab’s founder, Nicholas Negroponte, has recognized him as a “pioneer” in his field.

While the computer industry is fast commercializing the wearable technology, it is not quite clear where Steve Mann is heading. He recently started a company called Existech that designs wearable computers, but it is run by volunteers, and is rooted as much in existentialism as it is in technology.

While there are many commercial niches for wearables, Steve Mann sees his invention as a general, all-purpose tool - much like the PC itself. He sometimes uses it to do mundane chores like grocery shopping. It works like this: As Steve walks down supermarket aisles, his wife Betty Lo logs-on to her husband’s wearable, sees what he sees through his eyeglass-camera, and with her mouse, shows him on his mini-display, which brand of cereal she wants him to pick-up.

Hans Sandberg

“For your own protection”

Living with a wearable computer opens-up a range of questions, from the practical to the political - and even philosophical. What happens to privacy if we are always accessible and “connected”? What happens to individual experience if other people can see and hear what we see and hear?

Early in his career, Steve Mann focused on the practical and moral implications of strapping a computer to one’s body. His conclusion: the wearable computer is a defense weapon against a society that seeks ever more control and surveillance.

Mann loves to show video recordings of himself walking into department stores and asking cashiers or security guards about the cameras hidden behind domes in the ceiling. When they answer that it is for the customer’s safety, he pulls out his own video camera -- or points his wearable at them -- and informs them that he is monitoring them to, for safety’s sake of course.

“For your protection a video recording of you and your establishment may be transmitted and recorded at remote locations,” reads one of Mann’s T-shirts displayed at a recent art exhibition at the TPW gallery in Toronto.

“We already have smart floors, smart ceilings, smart toilets, and smart light switches. We have all this artificial intelligence (AI) around us,” says Mann, pointing to “humanistic intelligence” (HI) as a “counterpoint.”

He wants to empower individuals by adding computer power “to go,” and by connecting them wirelessly, so that they can share information and experiences with each other. “It is the idea of empowering individuals with intelligence in the computational feedback loop. It’s a new way of thinking, and it may solve a lot of problems we have with the reduction of human value through surveillance and A.I,” expands Professor Mann.

“I refer to this as existential technology, where existence comes before essence,” says Mann. “I invented this for some reason, and it took me years to figure out why I was motivated to do that. First you bring something into existence, and the essence comes later,” he adds.

Hans Sandberg

From McDonalds to Mars

Two of the best-known companies building “wearable computers” are ViA Technologies in Minnesota, and Xybernaut in California - but giants like IBM have also developed wearable computers, and recently agreed to manufacture wearable computer systems for Xybernaut.

ViA recently introduced a 20-ounce wearable the size of two walkmans that they are testing for order taking at McDonald’s drive-thru restaurants. They are also testing a mobile security system, together with the U.S. Navy, that uses face recognition software called “FaceIt” (by Visionics) to make it easier for military police to monitor who gets onboard navy ships while in port. The security guard takes a digital photo of the person in question using his eyeglass-based camera, and instantly matches it to a government database. The whole process takes a matter of seconds.

Xybernaut announced on June 12, that their Mobile Assistant system had been chosen by NASA to be worn by humans in a training project – for a trip to Mars. “Wearable computers may be the future for many space missions,” says Dr. Pascal Lee, the project scientist.

Hans Sandberg

Isn’t a Palm Pilot also a wearable computer?

Though the world is full of nerds and businesspeople who carry around small computers and cell phones in their pockets or purses, the wearable computer is a different kind of beast - it is always on, and it is always accessible.

It doesn’t require the user to sit down to use it. It displays its content either on a small screen an inch away front your eyes - or projects it directly onto your retina. You tell it what to do, either by talking to it (voice recognition), or by fiddling with a special device for single-handed typing, like the commercially available Twiddler.

While you have to (or ought to) stop what you are doing while using a Palm computer or Pocket PC, the wearable computer is designed to assist you at the same time you are doing other things.

Hans Sandberg