[Nfbf-l] Ray Kurzweil to join Google

[Tara Prakash]

We get to hear him on the last day of the national convention each year.

He is a visionary, but his products are still too expensive. In the age of 
iPhone, he will not be that essential in the world of accessibility if the 
products like K1000 remain as expensive as they are now.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alan Dicey" <adicey at bellsouth.net>
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 11:09 AM
Subject: [Nfbf-l] Ray Kurzweil to join Google


> Dear Friends,
> I have not seen his name mentioned for quite a while, but he is always on 
> my mind, each time I use my scanner to read my mail, bills mostly 
> (smile).!
> We the Blind or Visually Impaired People in this world owe so much to this 
> gentleman!
> Anyone remember those first  Kurzweil  /  Xerox machines, Or was it Xerox 
> / Kurzweil   ?
> They were larger than a large desk and cost $50,000 each.
> The UPS Center in Miami donated one to the Miami Lighthouse for the Blind, 
> and only a very few people were permitted to even be around that big 
> machine, as it was well, expensive!
> An incredible gentleman, and surely one of those that made a difference 
> for us!
> With Best Regards,
> Alan
> Miami, Florida
>
> Ray Kurzweil to join Google
> The noted artificial intelligence expert will become director of 
> engineering
> By Martyn Williams
> December 14, 2012 07:25 PM ET
>
> IDG News Service -
> Well-known American inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil is joining Google.
> The 64-year-old, whose work includes computer and machine intelligence, 
> neuroscience and virtual reality, revealed the move on his blog on Friday.
> Kurzweil said his work at Google would focus on new projects involving 
> machine learning and language processing. The job begins on Monday, when 
> Kurzweil will take the title director of engineering, he wrote.
> "I've been interested in technology, and machine learning in particular, 
> for a long time: when I was 14, I designed software that wrote original 
> music, and later went on to invent the first print-to-speech reading 
> machine for the blind, among other inventions. I've always worked to 
> create practical systems that will make a difference in people's lives, 
> which is what excites me as an inventor," he wrote.
> "In 1999, I said that in about a decade we would see technologies such as 
> self-driving cars and mobile phones that could answer your questions, and 
> people criticized these predictions as unrealistic. Fast forward a 
> decade --  Google has demonstrated self-driving cars, and people are 
> indeed asking questions of their Android phones. It's easy to shrug our 
> collective shoulders as if these technologies have always been around, but 
> we're really on a remarkable trajectory of quickening innovation, and 
> Google is at the forefront of much of this development," he wrote.
> Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general 
> technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on 
> Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is 
> martyn_williams at idg.com
>
>
>
>
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