Kurzweil
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Ray Kurzweil becomes a Googler, named Director of Engineering
Come December 17th, futurist extraordinaire Ray Kurzweil will be joining Google's ranks as Director of Engineering to work on projects that involve machine learning and language processing. Specifics regarding those projects, however, haven't yet surfaced. The technologist took the announcement to pat himself on the back about predicting the arrival of self-driving cars and smartphones that can answer questions more than a decade ago, and says he's "thrilled to be teaming up with Google to work on some of the hardest problems in computer science so we can turn the next decade's 'unrealistic' visions into reality." If things pan out how the Google greenhorn predicts, we might just see computers as crafty as Homo sapiens by 2029. [Image credit: Ed Schipul]
knfbREADER Mobile uses Nokia N82 as text-to-speech device
The K-NFB, a joint venture between Kurzweil Technologies and the National Federation of the Blind, introduced knfbREADER this week, a text-to-speech program for the N82. Coupling Kurzweil's image processing with the N82's camera, a user only has to snap a pic of the document to be read and the software will speak it back and allow you to follow along on the handset's screen as it highlights each word read. The device is able to read just about all printed materials, from newspapers to glossy printed material and even US currency. Compared to earlier products -- dating way back to giant contraptions in the early 80's -- this tiny package will be a boon for the visually impaired, as there's now no need to drag something around that's the size of a photocopier. We're hoping that we see this offering expand to other sets with capable cameras, and that the pricing gives all a warm fuzzy feeling.[Via Yahoo News]
