Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Steve Mann at the 2025 IEEE ICCE At the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics, ICCE, as Past President of the IEEE I presented Steve Mann with the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award. Steve is a Professor of Computer Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada. He is widely regarded as “The father of wearable computing.” Professor Mann founded the MIT Wearable Computing Project, which has had a major impact on the development of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and eXtended Reality products and services. In 1998, he invented, designed, and built the world’s first smartwatch capable of downloading and running a wide variety of apps for health, well-being, and fitness tracking, ushering in a new era of personal health. More than 30 years ago, Mann also invented High Dynamic Range imaging, which is now used in nearly every commercially manufactured smartphone, as well as many other cameras and computer vision systems, including systems to help the visually impaired see. He invented HDR imaging in his childhood and brought this invention to MIT and further refined it there. Steve lives in Toronto and is an avid swimmer, including ice swimming in the Winter. One of his inventions is a hydraulophone, a musical instrument that uses a pressurized hydraulic fluid, such as water, to make sound. He also developed wearable augmented reality googles for swimming that allow a group of swimmers to monitor the state of fellow swimmers, especially for ice swimming. In the 1990’s Mann continuously transmitted his life’s experiences, in real time, to his website for other people to view and respond to. MORE FOR YOU RFK Jr.’s Health Secretary Confirmation Live Updates: Senate Confirms Trump’s Pick—McConnell Votes ‘No’ Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Clues And Answers For Thursday, February 13th Netflix’s Best New Show Is A Surefire Emmy Contender Steve has created his own terminology to get at interesting aspects of our experiences of reality. The figure below gives an illustration of his view of elements of our modern human experience that include the traditional physical world, composed of atoms, a modern social world of humans, which he characterizes as genes and a virtual or cyber world of bits. Chart to show relationship of extended reality to the world of genes, atoms and bits. Combining the cyber world with the physical world gives us the ability to compute and create models, such as digital twins. Combining the cyber world with the human world enables social media and the metaverse. Adding all three elements leads to various cyber/human/physical experiences that can be generally described as extended reality, XR. At the ICCE Steve strove to give attendees experiences which illustrate his observations including holding a lit light source in your hand to show that we are all made of meat and blood on the inside. He illustrated this in the image below. Steve Mann demonstrates that we are the same on the inside The IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award was established in 1987 and recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of consumer electronics technology. Sponsored by the IEEE Ibuka Fund, the award is named in honor of Dr. Masaru Ibuka, who was the Honorary Chairman and co-founder of Sony Corporation. Ibuka’s innovative achievements and leadership have been an inspiration to several generations of electrical, electronics, and computer engineers. IEEE recognized the achievements of Steve Mann with the Masuru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award at the 2025 IEEE ICCE in Las Vegas. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website. Thomas Coughlin Editorial Standards Forbes Accolades