Controlling your gadgets by talking to them is so 2018. In the future, you won’t even have to move your lips.
A prototype device called AlterEgo, created by MIT Media Lab graduate student Arnav Kapur, is already making this possible. With Kapur’s device—a 3-D-printed plastic doodad that looks kind of like a skinny white banana attached to the side of his head—he can flip through TV channels, change the colors of lightbulbs, make expert chess moves, solve complicated arithmetic problems, and, as he recently showed a 60 Minutes crew, order a pizza, all without saying a word or lifting a finger. It can be used to let people communicate silently and unobtrusively with each other, too.
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AlterEgo does not read minds, though it may sound that way. Rather, it picks up on the itty-bitty electrical signals produced by small movements of our facial and neck muscles when we silently read or talk to ourselves. AlterEgo’s electrodes capture these signals and send them via Bluetooth to a computer, where they can be decoded by algorithms and then acted on (“Turn on the light,” for example).
Related on the SLP
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Though it’s still just an early-stage prototype, he imagines it being helpful for, say, calling an Uber, or making it easier for people with speech impediments and voice disorders to communicate.
Read full, original post: Say goodbye to Alexa and hello to gadgets listening to the voice inside your head
