From: Syracuse Herald-Journal

Date: Thursday, Feb. 13, 1997

Author: Hart Seely

"SU's 'Spaceman Spiff' science stuff breaks barriers as Dr. Dave Warner takes unorthodox look at future"

One wall holds a rack of tie-dyed shirts and a life-size Darth Vader cutout. Another offers a Mona Lisa poster that Leonardo da Vinci never envisioned. A sociologist might call the decor "Neoclassical Spencer Gifts."

A kid would call it neat. Really neat.

So is named Dr. Dave Warner's latest brainchild: The Center for Really Neat Research or CRNR, a facility at Syracuse University with perhaps the coolest title since the invention of the acronym.

"Remember Calvin & Hobbes, those icons of the '80s?" said Warner, 35, who came to SU two years ago. "If Spaceman Spiff went to grad school before his outer-space assignment, you know where he would have done his research? 'The Center for Really Neat Research.' That name captures the spirit of the child embodied with technology. And, well, it sort of stuck."

It's hard to describe all of Warner's plans for CRNR - "The Corner" to him and his fellow "power nerds." But the center in the former Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity house at 500 University Ave. will sponsor a public demonstration of computer cyberculture from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday.

Until now, the center's most visible offering has been to beam light shows onto an outdoor wide screen each night. Inside, portions of the 20-bed frat house still look like they're ready for a keg party. But Warner, whose pioneering work in telemedicine earned him an international following, has ambitious plans.

"it will be a center for cyberculture," he said. "Not just to say, 'Gee, look, Web pages and new technology!' but to ask: What are the sociological and psychological and interpersonal applications?"

With an eclectic style and a wardrobe that includes at least one totally tie-dyed suit, Warner gets attention. Ask a question, and his response might turn into a tirade about life.

"David certainly has his style," said SU physics Professor Edward Lipson, an admirer who has teamed up with Warner on several projects, including the Really Neat Center. "I think a lot of his drive and creativity is sparked by visual aspects. He always wants to be in a dynamic visual environment."

Warner brought to SU a reputation for creating computer gizmos that gave quadriplegic children the use of "virtual" hands and legs. Here, he continued such projects.

"One of our major goals has been to do work that is relevant to the real world," said Geoffrey Fox, director of the Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, SU's advanced computing facility, which lured Warner to Syracuse. "I see this work as highly relevant."

With high-tech sensors and custom-made software, Warner's colleagues program computers to react to facial movement. Curl an eyebrow, and the computer does one task. Twitch the lips, it does another. In the future, it might even react with a smile or a frown.

It's space-aged technology - with a critical difference.

"He isn't describing systems that cost tens of thousands of dollars," Lipson said. "His systems cost tens of dollars."

In early 1996, Lipson introduced Warner to Eyal Sherman of Syracuse, a Nottingham High School student who had lost use of his arms and legs because of a childhood brain tumor. The boy and his parents, Rabbi Charles Sherman and his wife, Leah, agreed to test Warner's methods. Fitted with a lacrosse helmet souped up with computer-linked sensors, Sherman learned to run machines by twitching his face.

Warner's group kept improving the software and the sensory links to the computer - little boxes called Thing One and Thing Two in honor of the late Dr. Seuss. They measured electricity given off by muscle movements, the changes in light made by a twitch and even the incredibly minute variances in magnetic fields created by the wink of an eye. Soon, Sherman could guide a remote-controlled model car, type his name, or clear the Ms. Pac Man screen - to the researchers' cheers.

"When we first did it (in research labs in California), the hardware cost about $20,000, the software was a one-of-a-kind program, and it took a room full of power nerds to make it work," Warner said.

"...The downside was that it was such new and bleeding-edge technology that it was cost-prohibitive for any patients other than the one or two we chose."

Today, graduate students make Thing One and Thing Two from cheap, easily found components. Only the software, written by Warner's associates, is expensive.

And that's the neatest part.

Through SU's advanced computing facility, the software can be downloaded free to personal computers linked to the World Wide Web. The site - www.pulsar.org - is called Pulsar.

"I believe the end result of this will be, as he says, really neat," Fox said.

For Warner, the former frat house is a place to practice what he calls "rock 'n' roll science.

"Hey, I'm a child of the '70s, need I say more?"

A southern California native, Warner sleepwalked through high school, then joined the Army. After the service, he "demilitarized" and dove into academia, his home since 1981.

"At one point they threatened me with employment," he said with a shudder. "But I had started a graduate program in neuroscience and - hah! - realized I had forgotten to take biology."

So he went to medical school at Loma Linda University in California.

"It's straightforward," he explained. "HOOP! JUMP! GET DEGREE! FILM AT ELEVEN!"

While a medical student, Warner hung out at "aerospace nerd parties in the L.A. basin" where discussion centered around new developments and virtual reality.

"I saw them building bombs and missiles and jet fighters, and then they migrated it into the entertainment industry with graphic violence and combat, and then into cybersex and all the other stuff," he recalled. "I said, 'Hey , that's OK, I'm not for censorship; go ahead folks, knock yourselves out - but don't forget that this technology has the potential to improve the quality of life.'"

So began Warner's "garage experiments," using computers to aid severely disabled children.

"It was trying to lead by example. It's one thing to stand up at a conference and say, 'LISTEN YOU IDIOTS, YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG!' It's something else to say, 'Hey, why don't we try this?'"

Increasingly, people are trying it. Although he suspected that most of the few hundred who have downloaded his software are fellow power nerds. Warner said he foresees a day - sooner than you think - when a family anywhere in the world could download the software, buy Thing One for a few dollars and use his systems to help a disabled person.

Will it create an industry? Maybe. A product? Probably. But Warner said he doesn't see himself as the corporate type.

"We don't want to become business people, manufacturers," he said. "We will if it comes to that...Right now we've got the software and hardware and everything's ready to be licensed out."

As Warner last week toured the center's mostly bare rooms, he described a limitless future. There would be exhibits for telemedicine and virtual reality. Maybe a summer cybercamp for kids. Theme rooms designed by SU students as living and work spaces of the future. ("I tell them, we don't want this to be like the Death Star; it's got to be nice.") A cyberlibrary. Maybe a clinic for disabled children. Anything worthy of Spaceman Spiff.

"We're dealing with things people don't even know exist yet. They're saying, 'Where are these guys coming from?' And me, well, I guess I'm way out already," he said with a Mona Lisa smile.

"But I'll tell you one thing. The kids sure get this. They'll get it all the way. And basically, this is for them. Because right now, there's nothing like this around here. I just see it this way: We have the opportunity of a lifetime."

Photo caption reads:

Dr. Dave Warner puts on headgear designed to help quadriplegics operate computers by registering light reflected off the face. Markus Schmidt, a visitor from Germany, looks on.