MIT's mind-reading AlterEgo headset can hear what you're thinking

Have you ever wished you could simply think a command and your computer would respond? That's the future envisioned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers who created AlterEgo, a wearable system that allows you to converse with a computer without using your voice or movement. According to a video on the project from MIT Media Lab, the ultimate goal of AlterEgo is "to combine humans and computers." A computing system and wearable device comprise AlterEgo, a futuristic project led by graduate student Arnav Kapur of the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT. Electrodes, a machine learning system, and bone-conduction headphones help get the job done: the electrodes "pick up neuromuscular signals in the jaw and face that are triggered by internal verbalizations -- saying words'in your head' -- but are undetectable to the human eye," according to a MIT News statement. A machine learning system, trained to correspond certain signals with words, receives the signals. The bone-conduction headphones "transmit vibrations through the bones of the face to the inner ear."