MIT Media Labs launches mind-reading headset AlterEgo

MIT Media Lab has devised a headset which can read one's thoughts, and process answers for questions and reply to its wearer without the need for speaking out loud.

As per a report by CNET, when we think about something, our brain sends a signal to our mouth and jaw, and AlterEgo captures these signals. For example, if a person is in a supermarket and wants to know the total sum of the groceries bought, AlterEgo would tabulate the prices that the user thinks and sends back the result through an audio medium.

MIT Media Labs states that the communication between AlterEgo and the person wearing it, happens through bone-conduction headphones. The technology transmits sound vibrations through the face bones without travelling through the ear canal. Thus, AlterEgo could easily communicate with the individual while he is actually talking to someone else.

In its trials that involved 15 people, AlterEgo had an accurate transcription rate of 92 percent. Arnav Kapur, the graduate student who led AlterEgo's development, describes it as an "intelligence-augmentation device."

"We basically can't live without our cellphones, our digital devices. But at the moment, the use of those devices is very disruptive,” said Pattie Maes, Kapur’s thesis advisor at MIT Media Lab adding that she along with her students have been experimenting with new types of experience to enable people to “still benefit from all the wonderful knowledge and services that these devices give us, but do it in a way that lets them remain in the present."