Featured Image Credit: CBS 60 Minutes
Topics: Technology, Science, Artificial Intelligence
Ellie Kemp
Ever felt that picking up your phone to Google something was too much effort? Me too.
From looking up who that actor is in the movie you're watching, to finding your next air fryer recipe, we're reliant on the internet for all sorts of information.
And with voice-controlled digital assistants built into our phones, sometimes we don't even need to physically type to make a Google search.
But if you've ever fancied surfing the web with just your mind, then you're in luck.
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A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate has figured out how to do that very thing, by creating a headset device that allows people to search the internet using the power of their brains.
Named AlterEgo, it allows the wearer to 'communicate' with technology without having to speak a single work, or type a single letter.
It might sound like something out of a sci-fi film, but here's how it works.
The device records signals when the user internally verbalizes a particular word.
This information is then sent to machines, which use the internet to find the answer.
Without speaking, typing or doing anything at all, the device is able to search the internet for the correct answer before feeding back the information via skull vibrations into the inner ear.
Apparently, the answer presents itself in a similar way to a person's internal voice, but without interfering with their 'usual auditory perception'.
AlterEgo can search for info, solve math equations and provide answers to all kinds of different questions.
"This enables a human-computer interaction that is subjectively experienced as completely internal to the human user - like speaking to one's self," MIT Media Lab explains.
"This enables a user to transmit and receive streams of information to and from a computing device or any other person without any observable action, in discretion, without unplugging the user from her environment, without invading the user's privacy."
In a video of the device in action, AlterEgo developer Arnav Kapur is asked to provide the answer to a ridiculously difficult maths calculation, which he does no problem.
He's then asked to name the largest city in Bulgaria, as well as providing the population of the region, too - which, of course, he answers correctly.
Kapur says the idea is to basically have the entire internet in his head.
However, it also has another purpose, as MIT notes: "A primary focus of this project is to help support communication for people with speech disorders including conditions like ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and MS (multiple sclerosis).
"Beyond that, the system has the potential to seamlessly integrate humans and computers - such that computing, the Internet, and AI would weave into our daily life as a 'second self' and augment our cognition and abilities."