Alterego demoes ‘world’s first near-telepathic wearable' that enables 'typing at the speed of thought' other abilities — device said to enable silent communication with others, control devices hands-free, and restore speech for impaired

A start-up has come out of stealth with a demonstration of what it claims to be “the world’s first near-telepathic wearable that enables people to communicate silently, seamlessly, and at the speed of thought.” Alterego is the name of the new firm, and it says it will pioneer how humans interact with tech – and each other.

In the embedded video above, you can see a demonstration of the Alterego wearable hosted by Arnav Kapur, CEO and co-founder, who is joined by Max Newlon, COO and co-founder of the company. Kapur started work on the first versions of the Alterego wearable at MIT Media Lab. Newlon previously grew a neurotech startup incubated in the Harvard Innovation Labs into a $1bn company.

The key claimed features of Alterego wearable are:

• Type at the speed of thought (no keyboard required)
• Restore speech capability for those with impairments
• Silently search the internet
• Control apps and devices hands-free
• Ask questions about the world around you (via on-device cameras)
• Hold silent, private conversations with others
• Unlock new levels of human-AI collaboration

The demo

At the time of writing, we haven’t had access to any Alterego wearable device images. We know that it is worn around the ears like spectacles, but rests largely on the back of the head, as we can see this in the video presentation.

To start the demonstration, Kapur begins to send text by the power of thought. Of course, this is easily extended to adding notes and reminders to a smart device app.

There are also “tiny cameras built in” to the device to make sense of the surrounding environment. We see this demonstrated when Kapur holds a postcard in his hands, points to an image detail and silently asks about it. Next we see more smart device integration, as the CEO tells the wearable AI assistant to set a reminder based on the interaction.

Next up we see Newlon join Kapur, put on his headset and take part in a silent conversation with Kapur. At this time, we get a momentary but better glimpse at the size of the (currently) wired wearable device. The pair talk about the benefits of ‘telepathic’ communications, in noisy environments, for example.

The last demo in the video shows Kapur communicating with a Mandarin Chinese speaker. Communication seems slick and friction free – even between different languages – thanks to a translation layer.

The technology

Alterego’s ‘Silent Sense’ technology is still very much under wraps, in technical terms. However, the company shares some important features of the technology.

For example, as it is described, Silent Sense avoids broadcasting your deepest thoughts by “passively detecting the downstream subtle signals your brain sends to your speech system, before words are spoken aloud.” The Alterego team stress that “It never reads your thoughts.”

To wrap up, this is the first glimpse we have had at this ‘moonshot’ and while it seems impressive we should retain some cynicism about the true ease-of-use and capabilities of Alterego. There have been plenty of other AI flops in recent years that had promising starts. However, we would like to be optimistic that something such as Alterego, a non-invasive technology, could give the likes of Neuralink a run for their money in some potential use cases.

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