A new wearable supposedly allows ‘silent communication at the speed of thought’

A new startup wants you to believe that the future of communication is already here — and it looks a lot like strapping a headset to the back of your skull. Alterego, founded by MIT Media Lab alum Arnav Kapur and neurotechnology exec Max Newlon, burst onto the scene this week with a demo of what it calls the “world’s first near-telepathic wearable,” as Tom’s Hardware reports.

A bold claim and convincing demonstration

If authentic, it holds incredible promise

Alterego’s claim is actually pretty straightforward, if slightly fantastical. The so-called Silent Sense technology is claimed to type at the speed of thought, restore lost or missing speech abilities, enable silent web search, translate across languages, and even hold private conversations without making a sound. It supposedly works by detecting the faint neuromuscular signals your brain sends toward your speech system before words leave your mouth. Importantly, the company stresses it’s not reading your raw thoughts, although that assurance probably won’t assuage the fears of anyone worried about invasive tech.

In the video demo, Kapur shows off “typing” reminders without a keyboard, using the headset’s tiny cameras to ask questions about the physical world, and holding a silent chat with his cofounder. There’s even a sci-fi moment where Kapur speaks in English while a Mandarin speaker instantly understands him. More than just novel and fascinating, this kind of technology could be an accessibility game-changer.

It sounds borderline magical, which might be exactly what leaves some skeptical. For every polished, eye-catching reel promising frictionless human-AI synergy, there’s usually a tangle of wires, calibration headaches, and limitations that don’t make the cut. The current prototype is still wired, bulky, and conspicuously missing any close-up product shots. And without independent verification, it’s impossible to tell whether Alterego’s translation trick is real-time sorcery or just carefully staged editing.

That’s not to say the idea isn’t intriguing. A non-invasive wearable that restores speech or enables private communication could be a genuine breakthrough, especially compared to brain-implant approaches like Neuralink. But for now, Silent Sense looks more like a promising concept than a product you’ll find at Best Buy anytime soon. Until we see actual hands-on impressions (instead of just the founders demoing to camera) it’s best to keep Alterego filed under “interesting, but unproven.”