Delhi-born MIT grad’s headset makes it to Time’s 100 Best Inventions of 2020

NEW DELHI: An AI-enabled ‘mind-reading’ headset designed by Arnav Kapur, an MIT graduate who grew up in Delhi, has been named as Time's 100 Best Inventions of 2020.

A postdoctoral student at MIT, the 25-year-old Kapur has made the list in the experimental category for AlterEgo, an AI-enabled headset designed by him, his brother Shreyas and fellow researchers at the MIT Media Lab.

The wearable device can be a boon for those with communication problems such as those with cerebral palsy and ALS by letting them communicate with the computer without saying a word, just by thinking of the instruction in their mind.

Basically, if you want to know if it’s going to rain tomorrow, all you have to do is formulate the question in your mind. Then, the headset’s sensors read the signals from the areas – facial and vocal cord muscles -- that would be triggered had you said it out loud, according to a report by Time. Then, the device carries out the action on your laptop. Using a bone conduction speaker, you receive the relevant information. The device has 92% accuracy in terms of being able to understand people.

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