“All of the structures that we use to run the world today — our civics, our politics, our legal systems, healthcare, education — are all structured for a world 100 or 200 years ago, not for the world of today. So we think we’re in for a lot of disruption,” says Salim Ismail, founding director of Singularity University.

ReasonTV’s Tracy Oppenheimer caught up with Salim at the 2013 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, CA to discuss crowd funding, the next steps in technological expansion, and how we’ve entered the age of an information-based environment. “It’s happening across industries. The first few were newspapers, music, and electronic publishing. Those were the first three domains to be fully information-enabled. Now were moving to cars being information-enabled,” says Salim, “we’re turning everything in to a computational basis.”

Singularity University’s academic programs strive to “educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” For more on Singularity University, watch ReasonTV’s profile here. Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer, camera by Alex Manning.

Singularity University was founded by Chancellor Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, chairman, in 2009.

FutureMed at Singularity University is a one-of-a-kind program that focuses on disruptive, game-changing exponential technologies that will revolutionize the practice of medicine and radically transform healthcare and the biomedical industry in the decade ahead.

The next FutureMed is scheduled for February 4-9th, 2013. It is widely acclaimed as the premiere interactive program for physicians, healthcare executives, innovators and investors who want to dive into the future of medicine. This is an intimate, hands-on and highly interactive program, limited to less than 100 participants, mixing it up with over 60 world class faculty. FutureMed is described by past attendees as “a mind-opening voyage into the future, with the people who are creating it; absolutely incredible; and intellectually invigorating with practical business benefits; mind expanding, and tremendously inspiring.”

If you know individuals who may be interested in attending, please have them apply here ASAP.

About FutureMed:
FutureMed at Singularity University prepares physicians, health care executives, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors to recognize and leverage disruptive influences of exponentially growing technologies in the fields of medicine and healthcare. Core tracks include Information and Data-Driven Health, Internet-Enabled Healthcare, Genomics and Personalized Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, Robotics and Future Interventional Approaches, NeuroMedicine, Device and Drug Development, and Biomedical Entrepreneurship. FutureMed Corporate partners include Genentech, GE, and Biogen-Idec.

Spread the word by tweeting @FutureMedTech “Challenging health barriers Informing u of latest research & Inspiring change” Feb 4-9, 2013 #futuremed http://bit.ly/FMapply

“Well, some amazing changes that are fantastically big and fantastically fast are coming our way,” says noted futurist Alvin Toffler in the much-anticipated movie, The Singularity Is Near, A True Story About the Future, available today.

The Singularity is Near stars Ramona, played by NCIS star Pauley Perrette, a superintelligent avatar (artificial-intelligence- based, human-like virtual person) created by AI wizard Ray Kurzweil (played by himself). Ramona desperately wants to be accepted legally as a human, but faces immediate shutdown by the authorities.

So she turns to (who else?) famous civil liberties lawyer Alan Dershowitz (played by himself) and seeks coaching by Tony Robbins (also played by himself) to discover what it means to be human.

These dramatic scenes punctuate an investigation of our amazing future by Kurzweil in dialogue with 19 “big thinkers,” who explore the impacts of the rapidly accelerating amazing technologies ahead, enriched with animations and graphics.

The movie is available exclusively through store.singularity.com via downloading, DVD, or deluxe box set (including the feature film and more than three hours of bonus material, behind-the-scenes footage, and extended interviews).

Director: Anthony Waller (Mute Witness, An American Werewolf In Paris, The Guilty)
Producers: Ray Kurzweil, Ehren Koepf, and Toshi Hoo
Executive Producer: Martine Rothblatt

A Terasem Motion Infoculture presentation in association with KurzweilAI.net, based on Ray Kurzweil’s New York Times best-selling book The Singularity Is Near.

Singularity University (SU), a Silicon Valley organization located at NASA Research Park  in California seeks next-generation rock-stars to join this summer’s Graduate Studies Program 2012 (GSP12).

Every summer, SU selects 80 top students from around the world to join the GSP class.

Our students comprise a diverse set of forward-thinking minds with entrepreneurial experience and a passion for solving the biggest challenges.

Apply today! Deadline to apply is March 31, 2012. GSP12 will be held from June 16 – August 26, 2012 in Mountain View, California.

If you are a female pioneer, if you are a game-changer, if you want to improve the lives of a billion people — apply to GSP12. The biggest problems of our time require diverse and global solutions. The voice of women, of female change-agents, is critical to achieve the global equitable impact desired.

This summer’s GSP12 class will receive nearly 500 hours of core lectures in topics including Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Nanotechnology, Biotech, Networks and Computing, Policy and Law, to name a few. In addition, students will attend workshops, site visits and receive cross-disciplinary understanding of the biggest ideas and issues in transformative technologies, their potential implications and opportunities over the next decade.

Moreover the GSP12 class will be challenged with “109+ Team Projects” — the highlight of the 10-week program with the goal of developing solutions with the potential to positively impact one billion people, in ten years. The SU atmosphere of innovation, ideation and intellectual exploration created by a diverse and talented student and faculty body is key to team project success.

The GSP12 Team Project areas include: Education, Global Health, Poverty, Energy, Global Security, Food, Water and Environment.

Singularity University’s students are selected based on three criteria: (1) they are top students; (2) they are demonstrated entrepreneurs and leaders; (3) they are committed to addressing the world’s grand challenges. In 2011, students from 35 nations were selected.

Apply for your spot at Singularity University!

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Susan Fonseca is a Founding Member of Singularity University (SU) and the Founder of Women@TheFrontier, an explosive forum highlighting female change-agents that are leveraging exponential technologies and innovative platforms to address global grand challenges.

She organized SU’s 2008 Founding Conference, helped source 1.5M seed funding, and negotiated a 5-year partnership with NASA. Susan is titled “Founding Architect” for her role in building the initial DNA that is SU.

As well as the X Prizes, Mr. Diamandis is cofounder and chairman of Singularity University, where the futurist Ray Kurzweil’s ideas of exponentially accelerating technology are explored. Despite being unusually optimistic myself about what lies ahead for humanity, I’m not yet convinced that we are about to see almost infinite rates of technological improvement — Mr. Kurzweil’s singularity — resulting, for example, in the indefinite extension of life. [...]

Defying the doomsayers: Abundance argues that growing technologies have the potential not only to spread information but to solve some of humanity’s most vexing problems.

If every image made and every word written from the earliest stirring of civilization to the year 2003 were converted to digital information, the total would come to five exabytes. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes — or just think of it as the number one followed by 18 zeros. That’s a lot of digital data, but it’s nothing compared with what happened from 2003 through 2010: We created five exabytes of digital information every two days.

Get ready for what’s coming: By next year, we’ll be producing five exabytes every 10 minutes. How much information is that? The total for 2010 of 912 exabytes is the equivalent of 18 times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written. The world is not just changing, and the change is not just accelerating; the rate of the acceleration of change is itself accelerating. [...]

New book by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler debuts in top 100 on Amazon (credit: Amazon.com, Inc.)

A special message from author Peter Diamandis:

Dear readers,

On February 20, 2012, Abundance debuted #1 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Thank you for your support! Check out the book here. Below are some reviews that Abundance has received so far.

• “A brilliant, must-read book. A powerful antidote to today’s malaise and pessimism.” — Ray Kurzweil
• “Abundance provides proof that the proper combination of technology, people and capital can meet any grand challenge.” — Sir Richard Branson
• “This is a vital book. Diamandis and Kotler give us a blinding glimpse of the innovations that are coming our way” — Matt Ridley
• “Abundance redirects the conversation — it’s a reminder of the infinite possibilities for doing good.” — Arianna Huffington
• “This is an audacious and powerful read!” — Jeff Skoll
• “Diamandis and Kotler do a masterful job. Abundance is essential reading for anyone looking for a better tomorrow.” — Elon Musk

Thank you again!
— Peter Diamandis

Barnes & Noble | Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge; this is a book about how we rise to meet it.

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp.

This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.

Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing — fast. The authors document how four forces — exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion — are conspiring to solve our biggest problems.

Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

Examining human need by category — water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom — Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.

Related:
Special message from Peter Diamandis & Ray Kurzweil | New book Abundance, and special offers to readers

“This brilliant must-read book provides the key to the coming era of abundance, replacing eons of scarcity,” says Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near.

Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, agrees: “This vital book … gives us a blinding glimpse of the innovations that are coming our way. …” Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, describes the book as “comprehensively sampl[ing] … the profound innovations going on to improve the human condition.”

The authors make a compelling case for optimism. We are introduced to dozens of innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in healthcare, agriculture, energy, and other fields: Dean Kamen’s “Slingshot,” a technology that can transform polluted water, salt water, or even raw sewage into incredibly high-quality drinking water for less than one cent a liter; the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, which promises a low-cost, handheld medical device that allows anyone to diagnose themself better than a board-certified doctor; and Dickson Despommier’s “vertical farms,” which replace traditional agriculture with a system that uses 80 percent less land, 90 percent less water, and 100 percent fewer pesticides, with zero transportation costs.

As a bonus, the authors provide a detailed reference section filled with 90 graphs, charts, and graphics offering much of the source data underpinning their conclusions.

Special offers to KurzweilAI readers

According to Diamandis, KurzweilAI readers who place an advance order by February 13 (at http://www.abundancethebook.com) will receive four gifts worth more than $1200: access to Singularity University’s private graduate training video library (covering AI, robotics, computing systems, neuroscience, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, energy, and innovation); a $1200 gift certificate toward attendance at SU’s 7-day Executive Program at the NASA Ames Campus in 2012; free online access to view Transcendent Man, a documentary film chronicling the life and controversial ideas of Ray Kurzweil; and an invitation to a meeting with the book’s authors via webcast.

In addition, Diamandis calls on the Kurzweil community to help ignite a new conversation around the world, and in the process enter to win a $5,000 gift (either a ticket to a zero-gravity flight, http://www.gozerog.com, or a seat at the 4-day SU Executive Program, http://www.singularityu.org).

Visit http://www.abundancethebook.com/tell-a-friend for more information.

Also see:
book | Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Abundance Hub YouTube channel

The story of Stevie Wonder’s technical challenge to Ray Kurzweil that ultimately motivates the inception of Kurzweil Music Systems.

Related:
Kurzweil Music Systems

Myron McKinley, musical director for Earth, Wind & Fire discusses his long history and appreciation of Kurzweil musical instruments. Myron explains his method of alternative use of the PC3 K Series slider controls.

Instead of owning, maintaining, and operating its own fleet of cars (which is how Zipcar works), Getaround owns no vehicles, which may help it avoid problems like those that plague Zipcar. [...]

Good | What does tomorrow look like? To assemble our second-ever GOOD 100 list (check out the first here), we surveyed culture and politics to pick out trends and seemingly minor moments that tell us where we’re all headed, together.

The big picture is pretty exciting. We’re taking action, not just sitting around. We’re going small-scale to make a big impact. We’re returning to things that worked a long time ago but haven’t worked for quite a while — the street protest, printed matter, local manufacturing — and adapting them. We’re finally taking our kindergarten teacher’s advice and learning how to share. And even though we’re kind of over the idea of material possessions, we’re more excited than ever to learn how to make stuff. We’re doing all of this simultaneously, because the world is too complex and broken and beautiful and exciting to tackle one thing at a time.

Here are 100 glimpses of the immediate future, in a unique interactive experience thanks to our partner Fiat. What’s the new Apple? The new unpaid internship? The new Adderall? The new black? We’ve got your answers.

Out of that one platform sprung a company, Senstore, which is bent on building a platform versatile enough to support hardware as diverse as apps for an operating system. I got a chance to speak with Senstore co-founders Antony Evans and Rachel Kalmar about their vision, what challenges they face in achieving it, and how their technology will impact healthcare of the future.

After building the platform at SU, Evans and Kalmar took it to Startup Weekend, an intense 54-hour workshop to develop marketable technologies, and tasked engineers with turning their hardware into a body sensor. What resulted was a device called Live Home Free that an elderly person who lives alone could wear. If they’ve fallen and they can’t get up, the device detects the abrupt change in movement/posture, and signals to their families or primary care givers that something is wrong. The team built the device in the allotted 54 hours and received top prize for the Health vertical.

But rather than simply build a better LifeCall, Live Home Free was a kind of proof-of-principle that the team hopes will lead to a hardware platform on which others can build sensors to monitor the body. Senstore was founded with the explicit goal of putting “a health sensor device on every body.” Live Home Free will be the company’s first commercially available product, but their sights are set on a device that does more than detect falls. What they want to build is a medical tricorder that monitors the entire body.

We’ve covered Scanadu’s tricorder, against which Senstore’s will go head-to-head in theQualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE. But, if Senstore’s vision is realized their tricorder promises to be much more powerful. Scanadu’s tricorder will be non-invasive, non-sampling, non-contact, and non-cooperative, meaning solutions will be reached with minimal effort for the patient. In contrast, Senstore hopes to build a tricorder that gets its hands dirty. Incorporating a lab-on-a-chip feature like the one tested in Rwanda to detect HIV and syphilis would require taking blood samples, and would obviously require patient cooperation. They would also like to measure cardiac function to detect signs of a heart attack before it strikes. Right now this requires an echocardiogram, not a feasible option for large-scale screening of the population. A DIY tricorder would be cheaper and vastly more convenient so patients could potentially check their heart every single day from home. The tricorder could also provide a more sensitive tool for detecting signs of stroke. So-called ‘silent strokes’, which occur without any outward symptoms and thus go unnoticed by the people who suffer them, affect one in four people age 65 and older. [...]

E-book solution for new class of ultra responsive devices to include a robust bookstore with best sellers and rich content, delivered through the Blio e-reading application.

Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of digital and physical books today announced an agreement with Intel, the world leader in computing innovation, to provide a comprehensive e-book solution for Ultrabook devices through Intel® AppUp(SM) center.

“We are thrilled to be chosen by Intel to deliver its e-book platform, which will showcase popular and enhanced ebooks in an ultra-responsive, elegant way.  Ultrabook devices are the next step in mobile computing for consumers, providing a portable, sleek device for readers to enjoy their favorite ebooks,” said Bob Nelson, president of Baker & Taylor’s Digital Group. “Through our agreement with Intel, we can deliver a versatile e-reading experience and rich, interactive digital content on a truly innovative device.”

Through its partnerships with thousands of publishers worldwide, Baker & Taylor will provide a fully merchandized bookstore that includes best-selling titles, as well as children’s books, textbooks and lifestyle books, such as travel and cookbooks, many with integrated full-color, sound effects and multimedia.  This bookstore will feature the Blio e-reading application, developed by K-NFB Reading Technologies, founded by technology visionary Ray Kurzweil.  Ultrabook users will have at their fingertips the content they want and the interactive features and functionality to more fully engage their e-books.

“People are increasingly looking to one device to serve their content consumption and content productivity needs, and Ultrabook devices make that possible by providing the most complete and satisfying experience,” said George Thangadurai, general manager of PC Client Services at Intel Corporation.  “Baker & Taylor brings a comprehensive collection of e-books to Ultrabooks and through the Blio e-reading application, powered by Intel AppUp Center, provides a superior reading experience for visually rich content.”

Ultrabooks, inspired by Intel, are a new category of laptop computers that are ultra responsive, ultra sleek and blend high performance, smart capabilities and portability. Ultrabook devices are perfect for consumers to engage e-books, as they are equipped with superior screen resolution, high speed, large memory, and extended battery life.

About Baker & Taylor

Baker & Taylor, Inc. (www.baker-taylor.com) is the world’s largest distributor of books, digital content and entertainment products. The company leverages its unsurpassed worldwide distribution network to deliver rich content in multiple formats, anytime and anywhere. Baker & Taylor offers cutting-edge digital media services and innovative technology platforms to thousands of publishers, libraries and retailers worldwide. Baker & Taylor also offers industry-leading customized library services and retail merchandising solutions. Baker & Taylor is proud to power Blio (blioreader.com), the world’s most flexible, engaging and revolutionary e-reading application. Charlotte, N.C.-based Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., an institutional private equity fund managed by Castle Harlan, Inc., a leading private equity investment firm.

Baker & Taylor and the Baker & Taylor logo are trademarks of Baker & Taylor, Inc. Blio is a trademark of K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc. Other company and product names mentioned for identification purposes may be trademarks of their respective owners.

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of the $10M Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize. I had a chance to announce live on stage this morning at CES, during the opening keynote. Details below. I hope we’ll have a number of SU teams and Kurzweil readers enter to compete!

— Peter

The X Prize Foundation and Qualcomm Foundation today announced the launch of the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, a global competition to revolutionize healthcare.

In this competition, teams will leverage technology innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and wireless sensing –– much like the medical Tricorder of Star Trek® fame — to make medical diagnoses independent of a physician or healthcare provider.

The goal of the competition is to drive development of devices that will give consumers access to their state of health in the palm of their hand.

The $10 million prize purses will be awarded to the team that develops a mobile platform that most accurately diagnoses a set of 15 diseases across 30 consumers in three days. Teams must also deliver this information in a way that provides a compelling consumer experience while capturing real time, critical health metrics such as blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature.

The winning solutions will enable consumers in any location to quickly and effectively assess health conditions, determine if they need professional help and answer the question, “What do I do next?” when it comes to their health.

X Prize Foundation CEO, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, joined the Chair of the Qualcomm Foundation and CEO of Qualcomm, Dr. Paul Jacobs, during the keynote presentation today at CES in Las Vegas to announce this exciting advancement.

The desire to provide consumers real-time data regarding their own health is of personal interest to both Drs. Diamandis and Jacobs. “There is a dire need to improve access to healthcare globally and provide consumers with an opportunity to be active participants in their own health,” said Dr. Diamandis. “The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize will incent the creation of technologies that can empower the consumer with the ability to decide when, where and how to seek health information and care.”

Click here to learn more about this exciting new competition.  Also, “Like” us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to continue to receive the updates in this exciting competition and the resulting technical advancements in our efforts to revolutionize humanity.

TRICORDER is a trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. Used under license.

__________________

Peter H. Diamandis, M.D.
Chairman/CEO, X Prize Foundation
www.xprize.org

Related:
Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize
Forbes | “X Prize and Qualcomm announce $10 million Tricorder Prize”
Discover | “X Prize Foundation wants to make tricorders a reality”

Source: ABC

You can learn more about Blio here (Blio.com) and here (MeetBlio.com).

“We are proud to announce King County Library System as the first installation of our Axis 360 digital media library. It is an honor to have been selected by KCLS – rated the busiest library system in the U.S., and Library Journal’s Library of the Year for 2011,” said George Coe, Baker & Taylor’s President of Library & Education. “We look forward to helping King County Library System serve and delight their patrons with our cutting-edge service, and providing KCLS with comprehensive collection development programs and an integrated workflow for both print and digital materials.”

Axis 360 is a revolutionary digital media platform, providing libraries and their patrons with a state-of-the-art system for circulating enhanced digital content and Blio, the ground-breaking ereading software.

Libraries using the Axis 360 service benefit from the latest Web technologies and cloud-based delivery to mobile devices. Patrons at KCLS will enjoy the dynamic presentation of titles on the Axis 360 Magic Wall, the ease of locating books of interest via Browse by Subject pages, as well as book reviews and recommendations for further reading. Axis 360 also improves the user experience for borrowing digital content from the library. Cloud-based delivery greatly simplifies the process of downloading what patrons want to read onto the devices they prefer to use, including iOS, Android and Windows tablets and smartphones. And, ease of use for patrons means less demand on library staff resources.

Yet the value of Axis 360 to libraries goes beyond even that. While market-leading ebook technology improves patron experience, it is Baker & Taylor’s unrivaled expertise in collection development programs and services that brings tremendous benefits to librarians. Leveraging its flagship Title Source 3 selection and acquisition work tools, and a rich database of more than 7 million cataloged titles, Baker & Taylor maintains a unique position as the only supplier with the resources and expertise to provide libraries with comprehensive, evidence-based collection development services that effectively combine print anddigital materials selection and fulfillment into a single, streamlined workflow.

“Axis 360 has been long anticipated by our library system,” said Bill Ptacek, KCLS Director. “We look forward to this content filling the gap in our move to provide comprehensive digital resources to our patrons. Our patrons are clamoring for more and more in ebooks, delivered in a simple and convenient manner. Axis 360 is a big step in that direction.”

“We’re particularly impressed with the interactive content and color reproduction Blio provides, such as in children’s picture books and nonfiction for all ages, which is unavailable in the EPUB format,” said Alene Moroni, KCLS’s Selection and Order manager. “We considered other available and upcoming platforms, and were impressed with the Axis 360 platform and its device neutrality. Technology changes too quickly for any individual or institution to keep up step by step. We needed a source that will manage the changes and maintain accessibility. With Baker & Taylor’s strong presence in the market, Axis 360 is an attractive and viable option for aggressive growth now and in future. We look forward to expanding our collection in all areas as more content becomes available.”

The Washington state-based KCLS combines extensive services for a large population with excellent quality and care.

In 2010, a record-breaking 22.4 million items were checked out from KCLS, and the system received more than 10 million visits from patrons. KCLS, which serves a population of 1.2 million, has seen its demands grow during the economic downturn. Many patrons are coming into the library for the first time, eager to learn about new technology and the latest library offerings.

The partnership launches December 22, 2011 and will be accessible at:  http://kcls.axis360.baker-taylor.com

About Baker & Taylor

Baker & Taylor, Inc. (www.baker-taylor.com) is the world’s largest distributor of books, digital content and entertainment products. The company leverages its unsurpassed worldwide distribution network to deliver rich content in multiple formats, anytime and anywhere. Baker & Taylor offers cutting-edge digital media services and innovative technology platforms to thousands of publishers, libraries and retailers worldwide. Baker & Taylor also offers industry-leading customized library services and retail merchandising solutions. Baker & Taylor is proud to power Blio (blioreader.com), the world’s most flexible, engaging and revolutionary ereading application. Charlotte, N.C.-based Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., an institutional private equity fund managed by Castle Harlan, Inc., a leading private equity investment firm.

Baker & Taylor and the Baker & Taylor logo are trademarks of Baker & Taylor, Inc. Blio is a trademark of K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc. Other company and product names mentioned for identification purposes may be trademarks of their respective owners.

About King County Library System

KCLS (www.kcls.org) is a large system: 46 libraries serving more than 1.3 million residents and 18 school districts over a 2,131 square mile area of cities, towns, farms, and forests. Administrative efficiencies have a broad impact, and patrons expect their libraries to provide quality service, comfortable and welcoming facilities, responsible environmental practices, and responsible stewardship of public assets. In 2010, KCLS libraries were busier than ever. Patrons checked out nearly 22.4 million items, a 5% increase over the 2009 record. Staff issued more than 100,000 new library cards. Web traffic reached 31 million visits; program attendance hit 77,000, and 10.2 million visitors came through the libraries’ doors.

The first clip features John Teele (software dept. manager) and me (senior soundware engineer) on stage about 20 minutes before the show started.

The next two clips are interviews with Jon. I thought the readers might enjoy these! — Dave Weiser, Kurzweil Music Systems

Dave Weiser is the senior soundware engineer and marketing liaison for Kurzweil Music Systems [KMS]. He’s the lead sound designer and also represents KMS online.

Dave interfaces between the KMS engineers and the “outside world” — sales, international distributors, customers and high profile artists.

The quality of Kurzweil Music synthesizers has attracted many famous musicians over the years, and Dave has enjoyed working directly with David Bowie, Roger Waters, Brian Wilson, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Heart, Bernie Worrell (Parliament/Funkadelic), and many others.

John Teele and Dave Weiser hanging out on stage 20 minutes before the Roger Waters: The Wall Live show at Boston Garden:

Wikipedia | Jon Carin (born October 21, 1964, in New York City, New York) is a producer, artist and musician best known for his association with Pink Floyd, and more specifically its guitarist David Gilmour and former member Roger Waters over the last 25 years. In the early eighties, he gained fame as the front-man for the band Industry.

During his time with Industry, the band had a breakthrough single “State of the Nation” in 1983 and was followed by the successful album Stranger to Stranger. Jon Carin is ranked #38 on Digital Dream Door’s list of “100 Greatest Rock Keyboardists of All Time.”

Videos with Kurzweil Music and Jon Carin: 

Videos from previous concerts:

Wikipedia | The Wall is the 11th studio album by English progressive rock group Pink Floyd. Released as a double album on 30 November 1979, it was subsequently performed live with elaborate theatrical effects, and adapted into a feature film, Pink Floyd — The Wall.

As with the band’s previous 3 studio albums The Wall is a concept album, and deals largely with themes of abandonment and personal isolation. It was first conceived during the band’s 1977 In the Flesh Tour, when bassist and lyricist Roger Waters’ frustration with the spectators’ perceived boorishness became so acute that he imagined building a wall between the performers and audience. The album is a rock opera that centres on Pink, a character based on Waters or maybe Syd Barrett. Pink’s life experiences contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, represented by a metaphorical wall.

Related:
Roger Waters
Kurzweil Music Systems

Free e-reading application plus discounts on 1 million+ books, DVDs, CDs

The Grandparents.com Bookstore is open for business, with discounts and promotions for its customers that are competitive with online book merchants Amazon™ and Barnes and Noble™.

The Bookstore, operated in association with Baker & Taylor, Inc., the world’s largest distributor of print and digital books, carries over 1 million books, DVDs and CDs, and offers visitors to the Bookstore a free, downloadable eReading application, Blio, which offers hundreds of thousands of titles including today’s best sellers. For Grandparents.com Benefit Club members, the Bookstore has free shipping on orders over $25.

Screenshot of the new Grandparents.com Bookstore. (credit: Grandparents.com LLC)

“The grandparents who make up the target audience for our Bookstore represent one-quarter of all Americans,” explains Jennifer Fragale, Grandparents.com’s Director of Social Networking and its Benefits Club. “Grandparents are avid readers and we want them to save on books, movies and music. The Bookstore is a wonderful addition to our Benefits Club, where we provide our 400,000-plus members dependable discounts, prizes and giveaways on thousands of products and services.

Since launching the Club earlier this year, we have added more than 200 marketing partners who offer our members discounts on jewelry, gifts, toys, apparel, show tickets, theme parks, spas, wellness programs, hotels, car rentals, Grandparents Insurance Plans ™, and more — and now we have deals on books, DVDs and CDs. Unlike daily deal companies like Groupon™ or Living Social™, our offers remain available for months and years.”

“We are very focused on helping grandparents take advantage of the growth of e-books. The book industry metamorphosis, led by tablets and smartphones, has been dramatic,” says Gary Drevitch, Editor-In-Chief of Grandparents.com. “Our members are computer-savvy, and 40% of them visit Facebook™ daily. We favor the Blio platform because it allows grandparents to store their e-books in a private, virtual library accessible from their PCs and personal devices without having to buy a separate e-reader, such as a Kindle™ or a Nook™.

“Blio instead lets readers transform all of their internet-accessible computers, tablets and smartphones, including iPads™ and iPhones™, into e-readers. Blio offers today’s bestsellers as well as interactive rich-media, video, slide show, and audio-enhanced content from more than 100 top publishers, including Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Penguin Group, Macmillan and Simon & Schuster. Blio is a phenomenal product our users will adore.”

Blio has a host of functions that make it smart, fun and easy to use. It allows readers to experience books with brilliant color and crystal clear sound, bringing cookbooks, travel guides, how-to manuals, textbooks, and children’s books to life. With the ability to faithfully reproduce books’ color, layout and fonts, Blio is able to provide a large selection of books not available on E Ink devices. Blio supports touch interaction and will read selected books aloud, highlighting each word using the most advanced text-to-speech technology. Blio also allows you to insert notes, highlight sections or phrases, and look up references online, and it has multiple reading views, including text-only mode, single-page, dual-page, tiled pages, or 3-D “book view” for realistic page turning.

Michael’s interview, along with 40+ others are available on the NSR interviews page. [...]

The famously far-thinking inventor and author — critics would say too-far thinking — is addressing 37 executives from around the world who have assembled at the NASA Ames campus in Mountain View, California. Teleconferencing from Boston on October 2, 2011, Kurzweil appears onscreen like Oz the Great and Powerful in high def. His urgent message: Technology progresses at an exponential rate. Humans, having evolved to hunt game and avoid predators, are designed to think linearly. [...]

Perhaps this shouldn’t  be too surprising, many of us live in the mundane, harsh reality of the now. Day to day life, war, debt, unemployment, death and  taxes are difficult enough to grapple with without taking time out to contemplate the vast implications of a Technological Singularity predicted to emerge sometime between 2029 to 2050. Such a thing to the average man or woman can seem so distant, it may as well be ten thousand years away.

Despite the fact that many of the emergent technologies related to the Singularity hold the prospect to solve or (at the very least) reduce the severity of many of the major world problems we face; public interest in one of the most transformative ideas of our  time remains lackluster. [...]

This LIVE broadcast panel discussion will focus on accelerating technologies, the future of humanity, and the Singularity. The star-studded panel includes powerhouses like futurist Michio Kaku, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, inventor Dean Kamen and many more. Barry Ptolemy, director of the Transcendent Man documentary will be on hand, as will the subject of that film, Ray Kurzweil.

There’s also a long list of “special guest appearances” including Bill Maher, Suzanne Somers, Al Gore, Quincy Jones, and Elon Musk. In other words, this is going to be a massive event, and a great debate on what the future should and will hold. Check the listings on Fathom Events for tickets in your area and watch the trailer for the August 3rd nationwide screening below. Transcendent Man has been gathering momentum since its premiere more than two years ago. Could this event propel the film, and the concept of the Singularity, into the mainstream? [...]

I’m delighted to be able to say that the Blio app is now available, for free, in the App Store. It runs on iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad (iOS 3.2 or above), and I think it’s great.

The reading interface is based on a greatly enhanced version of Eucalyptus’ book display “engine” I call libEucalyptus. I’m really excited that it’s now available. Just like Eucalyptus, I think libEucalyptus, and Blio that’s built on it, has the easiest to use, easiest to read interface or any book app. [...]

K-NFB Reading Technology today announced that Blio, a leading interactive, engaging, and flexible ereading software application, will be available for download from Apple’s App Store onto the iPad, iPhone, and iPod beginning July 12.

Readers who already have a Blio account can now read all their books on their iPad, iPhones or iPods by downloading the app from the Apple App Store and entering their Blio account information.

Books which have been previously purchased at any Blio-enabled retail storefront will be automatically available in the users’ Blio library on their Apple device.  Blio, launched previously for the Windows operating system, is preloaded on millions of tablets, netbooks, laptops, and mobile devices and can be downloaded for free at www.blio.com.

Through its partnership with Baker & Taylor, the world’s largest distributor of print and digital books, Blio brings to life content categories that cannot thrive on e-ink platforms, including children’s books, lifestyle books such as travel and cookbooks, and textbooks among others.

“Making Blio available on these Apple devices was a promise to readers that we are excited to keep, and we will continue to work with mobile carriers and device manufacturers to offer the best reading experience to as many people as possible. The flexibility and choice to read on multiple devices, coupled with ease of use, are important to us and we are excited to see how Blio continues to transform the way readers engage with books,” said Bob Nelson, President of Baker & Taylor’s Digital Group.

Blio incorporates a book’s full-color printed layout, allowing digital books to stay true to their original format, while creating a vibrant, personal experience for readers.  Enhanced books with professional Read Along functionality allow users to engage with their content like never before.  Blio also enables readers to insert page notes, highlight, and browse the web from inside their books.

“Blio brings books to life by offering the most engaging, flexible and interactive reading experience you can find enabling readers to engage with their passions in a whole new way. And, it allows readers to take their libraries with them wherever they go. Now they can carry Blio across their devices, from desktops and laptops to smartphone and tablets, for a seamless experience,” said Ray Kurzweil, world-renowned inventor and founder of K-NFB Reading Technology.

Due to Apple’s new policy regarding purchasing products within an app downloaded from the App Store, the app does not provide a link to the Blio store. iPad, iPhone and iPod users can use their devices to purchase books by visiting http://mobile.blioreader.com.

Follow Blio and Baker & Taylor on Twitter at @Blioreader and @BakerandTaylor.

About K-NFB Reading Technology Inc.

A joint venture between Kurzweil Technology and the National Federation of the Blind, K-NFB Reading Technology Inc. has propelled reading technology forward for the last 30 years through the invention of omnifont OCR, flatbed scanners, text-to-speech technology and reading machines for the blind. K-NFB once again is redefining the boundaries of the printed word through Blio, which promises to set the standard for digital reading. This free application works across platforms and presents books as they were intended – in full color and as laid out by the publisher. K-NFB is headed by CEO Ray Kurzweil, a 30-year innovator and pioneer in assistive technologies. The National Federation of the Blind is the largest, most influential membership organization of blind people in the United States.

About Baker & Taylor

Baker & Taylor Inc. (www.baker-taylor.com) is the world’s largest distributor of books, digital content and entertainment products. The company leverages its unsurpassed worldwide distribution network to deliver rich content in multiple formats, anytime and anywhere. Baker & Taylor offers cutting-edge digital media services and innovative technology platforms to thousands of publishers, libraries and retailers worldwide.  Baker & Taylor also offers industry-leading customized library services and retail merchandising solutions. Baker & Taylor is proud to power Blio (blioreader.com), the world’s most flexible, engaging and revolutionary e-reading application. Charlotte, N.C.-based Baker & Taylor is majority owned by Castle Harlan Partners IV, L.P., an institutional private equity fund managed by Castle Harlan, Inc., a leading private equity investment firm.

Baker & Taylor and the Baker & Taylor logo are trademarks of Baker & Taylor Inc. Blio is a trademark of K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc. Other company and product names mentioned for identification purposes may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Transcendent Man: A Conversation about the Future with Ray Kurzweil

To buy tickets to a screening near you, watch the trailer, or get more information, please visit NCM Fathom here.

Based on the critically acclaimed film documentary Transcendent Man — which explores the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil — the live event will feature exclusive, extended excerpts from the film and a celebrity discussion panel.

Ray Kurzweil will give a special presentation on accelerating technology and its impact on civilization, followed by an all-star panel discussing the future of humanity, the merger of man and machine, and the imminent end of aging and disease, ushering in an era of extreme longevity and human potential.

The event will feature Deepak Chopra (live via Teleportec), filmmaker Barry Ptolemy, Apple Inc. cofounder Steve Wozniak, physicist Michio Kaku, technology entrepreneur Tan Le, and inventor Dean Kamen. With pre-recorded remarks from former Vice President Al Gore, Suzanne Somers, Quincy Jones, Bill Maher, Elon Musk and others.

Viewers are invited to submit a question in advance (to be answered by participants on event night) on the Transcendent Man Facebook page or Twitter (hashtag: #tmlive).

“Ray Kurzweil’s theory that human life will be interconnected with machines and computers within the next several decades is fascinating people worldwide,” said Dan Diamond, vice president of Fathom. “This special live event will give audiences a chance to hear directly from the celebrated inventor and a world renowned panel about the theory of immortality and the progress being made in that regard right now.”

And the speed of this doubling is accelerating. (Kurzweil has pretty startling predictions about how powerful computers will be by 2020, 2029 and 2050.) By anticipating the future technology we can position ourselves to dominate its use once it’s widely adopted. Through Kurzweil we can see that the merging of TV with the internet is likely to happen much sooner (certainly within the decade) than most realize. [...]

Transcendent Man, by director Barry Ptolemy, focuses on the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil. The film is available on DVD in stores nationwide (Best Buy and Barnes & Noble); for order at Amazon.com, WalMart.com, BestBuy.com, and BarnesandNoble.com; and on Netflix (DVD and “Watch Instantly”).

The DVD includes more than two hours of exclusive additional footage, with deleted scenes, extra interviews, and the Q&A with Kurzweil and Ptolemy after the film’s world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Transcendent Man is also available for downloading on iTunes and Movies On Demand (both without the extra two hours).

I’d like to request your support for an endeavor that will benefit the lives of over one billion people within 10 years. 

As you may know, I’m the co-founder and chancellor of Singularity University (SU), now in its third successful year. Each year, SU assembles an international class of the brightest graduate students — top achievers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds — to participate in our unique Singularity studies program.

Over the course of our curriculum, students learn about the game-changing technological and scientific breakthroughs that are shaping society, and that will dramatically alter humanity’s future. Armed with new tools for tracking, analyzing, engaging, and innovating in this space, our graduates emerge from the program as future leaders. Their applied knowledge will impact world affairs and economies, research and development, foundational sciences, entrepreneurism, the media and culture — broadly steering the coming era of ever-accelerating growth. SU challenges students to exploit innovation to solve humanity’s grand challenges.

The students and faculty of the inaugural Singularity University summer graduate studies program in 2009. (credit: Dave Lauridsen)

Our students exhibit incredible dedication. Traveling from over 30 countries, they come together at our Silicon Valley campus for one purpose — to leverage exponentially advancing technologies to improve the lives of over 1 billion people worldwide. 

Recruited from among 2,000 applicants for their academic achievements, leadership skills, and spirited humanitarianism — 80 selected students will soon convene for our 10-week summer program to innovate solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges: poverty, energy, security, education, space, and global health. 

SU is a non-profit institution backed by NASA, Google, Cisco, Nokia, Autodesk, Kauffman Foundation and ePlanet Ventures. 

These organizations cover the baseline operating costs. But we need your help to raise scholarships for these top students to attend our Graduate Studies Program. Please consider donating to help us assemble this amazing group from around the world. For those who contribute $100 or more, you’ll be given a chance to win a free Executive Program ($7,500 value) at the SU campus in Silicon Valley.

Please visit the following website for more information: Singularity University Scholarhsips on Crowdrise

Help us get this next generation of leaders to SU, so that they can launch the breakthrough businesses, innovations, and interdisciplinary understanding that will address the world’s grand challenges.

With my sincerest thanks,
Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil is an interesting as hell fella. Imagine a practical William Gibson or Phillip K Dick. Now, he’s technically not a science fiction author… except that he kind of is. He predicts technology. Anticipates it. He’s one of the foremost futurists around, and has worked with countries around the globe, Presidents, Corporate minds. He pushes the people that create technology to create new technologies. And he’s been a leader in the field for about 40 or more years. And he believes that huge changes are coming in the next 15-20 years. Look at your cellphone. Think about what it does, now just think back 3 years ago. [...]

The DVD will also be available for order on Amazon.com, WalMart.com, BestBuy.com, and BarnesandNoble.com, and on Netflix (DVD and “Watch Instantly”). Suggested retail price is $29.95.

The DVD includes more than two hours of exclusive additional footage, with deleted scenes, extra interviews, and the Q&A with Ray Kurzweil and director Barry Ptolemy after the world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Transcendent Man is also available for downloading on iTunes and Movies On Demand (both without the extra two hours).

In Transcendent Man, Ptolemy follows Kurzweil around the globe as he presents the daring arguments from his bestselling book, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Kurzweil predicts that with the ever-accelerating rate of technological change, humanity is fast approaching an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly non-biological and millions of times more powerful. This will be the dawning of a new civilization, enabling us to transcend our biological limitations, says Kurzweil.

Since its premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival, Transcendent Man has drawn critical acclaim. During its worldwide festival tour, the film screened to sold-out audiences at Tribeca in New York, the American Film Institute Festival (AFI Fest) in Los Angeles, and the International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA) in Amsterdam. It was also screened in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, New York, London, Boston, and Washington, D.C.

The film was lauded as “one of the top ten documentaries of the year” by the International Documentary Association (IDA).

Related:
Media coverage of the film

Critics call him a crackpot, while he calmly makes his predictions based on past events. Don’t be scared, he urges, just be ready to become bionic or risk being left behind. [...]

Transcendent Man is a documentary about innovations and revolutionary ideas based on Ray Kurzweil’s bestseller called The Singularity is Near. The movie is about the life, career and ideas of Kurzweil, who is well-known in America for being an inventor and futurologist. He invented many speech recognition systems. Kurzweil is known to have his own vision of future technologies. [...]

Related:
Transcendent Man website

Ramona is capable of synthesized speech and changeable accents. Her personality can also be adjusted to make her less or more nerdy or whimsical by typing “Nerdiness” or “Whimsicality” plus a level between 0 and 99 (e.g., “Nerdiness 87″).

Users can hear her speak in 14 international accents, ranging from Baltimore to Bangalore. Users can also converse with previous versions of Ramona.

Ramona is a long-term project. Ray Kurzweil projects that Ramona version 11 circa 2029 will pass the Turing test. This is one aspect of Kurzweil’s plan to win his bet with Mitch Kapor that a computer (a machine intelligence) will pass the Turing test by 2029 (Kapor is betting this will not happen).

Chat with Ramona now

A short bio

The Virtual Ramona Project was begun in 2000 by Kurzweil Technologies to envision the future of lifelike avatars in virtual spaces, and prototype their remote control by human operators.

Ramona conducts conversations with visitors, responding to typed questions or comments with a human face, lip-synched speech, and appropriate facial expressions. For the curious, she graciously answers questions about herself and her life story, including her burgeoning career as a virtual rock star.

A live-performance version of Ramona debuted at the TED 2001 conference, where she entertained the audience with live music, a dance performance, and music videos via state-of-the-art motion capture, real time photo-realistic animation, and pitch alteration software. Ramona’s virtual life story and downloads of her music and videos are also available.

Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, author and futurist, who for years has provoked debate with his brilliant and, some might say, alarming vision of the future: namely, in 2045, humanity will hit the Singularity, a point of human technological development so swift and breathtaking that our minds (as they are) could never comprehend. Which is why, to stay in the game, humans are going to gradually upgrade by merging with machines, becoming a billion times more intelligent and potentially immortal in the process.

Such a vision wouldn’t seem out of place in a novel by William Gibson or Iain M. Banks. The main difference being, though, Kurzweil is not a science fiction author. He came to this point after measuring the rate of progress of information technology, which revealed consistent patterns of exponential growth.

And what’s more, it’s all extremely predictable. Hence why Kurzweil has been able to accurately predict such events as a super computer defeating a chess champion and the emergence of the Internet. He shows no signs of losing form: you can see it in the data, if you know how to look.

In recent years, Kurzweil’s ideas have attracted increased public attention, in a blend of enthusiasm and incredulity. This looks set to grow following the release of the highly anticipated documentary, The Transcendent Man, which takes a close look at the man behind the big ideas that drive him forward. I met with Ray and the documentary’s director, Barry Ptolemy, at the Dorchester on Park Lane (grand ideas require grand surroundings) on the London leg of their international tour, for a discussion about the impending Singularity.

“We are constantly changing who we are. We didn’t stay in the ground; we didn’t stay on the planet. We did not stick with the limitations of our biology. To change whom we are, is who we are.”

Ray Kurzweil: The idea is that informational technology — not everything — but information technology progresses in an exponential manner. That’s a very powerful idea, and it’s also very predictable. If you take the fundamental measures of information technology — there are a hundred of them — for example, the power of computation, instructions per second per dollar, you see a very smooth line of exponential progression that has been uninterrupted since the recording devices used in the 1890 American Census.

Nothing had any effect on it, not World War I, World War II, or the Great Depression, the Cold War, or anything. It goes through thick and thin, war and peace, boom times and recessions. It’s remarkably predictable. But it’s not intuitive. We have an intuition about the future, which is hardwired in our brains. That intuition is linear, not exponential. So there are some quite complex ideas here, but the core is simple. A lot of my explanation is about the difference between them.

STB: What’s significant about the difference?

Ray Kurzweil: Basically, if you take 30 steps linearly, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so forth, at step 30 you’re at 30. If you take 30 exponential steps, doubling each time, 2, 4, 8, 16, at step 30, you’re at a billion. It makes a huge difference. And this is not an idle speculation about the future. This computer on my belt is a billion times more powerful, per dollar or per pound, than the one I used when I was a student at MIT. And that’ll happen again in 25 years.

STB: How does that affect humanity’s progress?

Ray Kurzweil: Well, for instance, the power of our biological technology is now progressing exponentially. When biologists who are not familiar with this idea look at health and medicine before it was an information technology — it wasn’t always and only became so recently with the collection of the genome — they look at how long things have taken in the past and use that as a model for the future. But the past was linear. The future of health and medicine and our longevity will be exponential, because health and medicine is now an information technology.

People often say, it can’t all be totally predictable, and I give them example after example of how for decades — over a century in the case of computers — this law of accelerating returns holds up. Its an outgrowth of what we see in evolution, because an evolutionally process evolves a capability and uses that capability to evolve a next stage, and that next stage is more powerful as it builds on the shoulders of the stage before. It goes more quickly, there’s an inherent acceleration. So there are many implications, but ultimately it will affect everything we care about, including our life spans.

STB: So what we’re effectively talking about here is the evolution of evolution via technology?

Ray Kurzweil: Exactly.

STB: Does that mean we’re actually on the verge of immortality?

Ray Kurzweil: The key idea there is radical life extension, to overcome the phenomena that results in short life spans, which I think are really quite tragic. The movie illustrates that with the example of my father. He really did die prematurely, but in my view everybody dies prematurely. By the time people actually get into their stride and have figured out how to be creative, and people start listening to them, they pass from the scene.

But then people say, we have to get rid of all these old people and make way for new people. [I believe that] We don’t need to get rid of older people, their wisdom and accumulated knowledge to make way for the new – now that we can actually reprogramme the software underlying our biology. Just in the same way we reprogramme our phones and computers.

Barry Ptolemy: I’d like to add one point. People criticize Ray’s ideas about longevity as being ridiculous, almost unnatural to live indefinitely. When people say, I don’t want to live forever, that’d be a form of Dante’s Hell, what they don’t understand is we’re also talking about radical life expansion. Life is going expand a billion fold in every direction in ways we can’t really imagine. The way we understand and enjoy the universe is expanding: we’re going to be able to travel at electronic speeds, we’re going to be able to have millions of friends who we can communicate with all at once. It’s going to be completely different to the life we’re used to right now.

STB: Why do you think people are sceptical about such predictions?

Ray Kurzweil: They’re sceptical because they often don’t bother to read what I’ve written; they just look at the conclusions and say, well that’s not intuitive. That’s not what I imagine will happen. And exponential growth, as I mentioned, is not intuitive. Our built-in predictions [as humans] are linear. So people assume our pace of progress will continue.

STB: Are there indisputable instances where your exponential view has clearly triumphed over our linear intuition?

Ray Kurzweil: I’ll give you an example: the genome project was announced around 1990, and mainstream critics were quite sceptical. I fully expected it would finish on time, which was 15 years. People thought that was ridiculous, because in 1989 we’d only collected one-ten-thousandth of the genome. Halfway through the project, only 1% had been finished. People said, I told you this was going to take centuries. Here we are, 7 years and we’ve only finished 1%. 100 times 7 years is 700 years, but it’ll speed up a little bit: it’ll be 100 years.

It was actually finished 7 years later, because it was doubling every year and 1% is only 7 doublings till 100%. The project was actually finished early. So unless you’ve really studied the implications of this exponential growth, it’s very surprising. In the 1980s, I talked about a worldwide web of communication emerging in the mid-1990s, when the entire U.S. defense budget could only tie together a few thousand scientists with the ARPANET. And people said, that’ll happen some day, hundreds of millions of people connected, but it’ll take centuries. It happened right on schedule, because that’s the power of exponential growth.

STB: Is there going to be a need for us to reconsider and redefine our concept of the future and the human in it?

Ray Kurzweil: I don’t have to change my concept of human, because my concept of human is we’re the species that transcends. We are constantly changing who we are. We didn’t stay in the ground; we didn’t stay on the planet. We did not stick with the limitations of our biology. To change whom we are, is who we are.

We can talk about some things. We’re entering a stage where we’re going to merge with our technology. We are quite merged already. I mean, my phone is not literally inside my body and brain, but it might as well be a part of who I am. Quite intuitively now, I use this as my memory. I’ll think, who was that actress again? and in a few seconds I’ll have that information. We don’t bother remembering things anymore.

Some people have already put computers in their bodies and brains: computerised pancreases, patients with Parkinson’s disease, implants for the deaf. Today they require surgery, because they’re not blood cell sized, yet. Another exponential is in terms of shrinking technology; I’ve measured that, and it’s a factor of a 100 in 3D volume per decade. At the moment these implants are pea sized, but they’ll be the size of blood cells in 20 years, and they’ll make their way into our bodies and brains.

STB: Sounds like we’re talking about cyborgs here.

Ray Kurzweil: We’ll become a hybrid. You’ll still talk to a biological human, your biological parents etc. But nonetheless you’ll be talking to cyborgs — somebody who has biological and non-biological processes mixed-up together. It won’t just be a case that we’ll have computers in our brains, they’ll be out in the cloud. Just as when I use this phone, I’m just using stuff inside this box, it’s out in the cloud accessing all of Google and lots of other services. So our brains will be out in the cloud. It’s going to be a smooth transition, where we’ll be a merger of biological and non-biological intelligence.

STB: Some people might say that this sounds like a future that doesn’t really require the human species. This is an automatic technological development quite indifferent to what we think or do.

Ray Kurzweil: It kind of depends on what you mean by the human species: in my mind this (emphatically points at phone) is a part of us right now. This didn’t come from Mars. This isn’t some kind of alien invasion. We created these tools. It’s who we are. These future humans who will ultimately become predominately non-biological are a continuation of the human species.

If you want to talk about what’s lost, nothing is lost. We are adding to our capability. We’re not going to do things if there is a loss.

Barry Ptolemy: People see technology as something square and mechanical like a computer. They don’t see technology as being a table, or a cup, or a footpath in the forest. When you view technology like that, you realise that technology has always been with us from the very beginning, and more importantly, it makes us more human. It’s amplified who we are, so the question that we should be posing is, who do we want to be?

STB: Isn’t there the potential that unsavoury forces, like oppressive governments or individuals, will use these new technologies?

Barry Ptolemy: The opposite is happening. We’re seeing that these technologies are having a democratising and decentralising effect, and when I say that, I mean more people have these technologies in their hands and in their belts, than ever before. So we’re taking power away from monopoles and putting into more hands.

Ray Kurzweil: There are dangers. Hugo De Garis says in the movie that I don’t like to hear about the downsides. That’s not really true, because I’ve written extensively about it. Of course, nobody likes to hear about it. But a lot of the material about the downsides and dangers comes from my writings.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword. I think you can make a strong case that we’ve benefited more than we’ve been harmed, but we have felt pain. Fire cooked our food, kept us warm, also burned down our villages, either accidentally or intentionally. Look at the 20th century, we had a 180 million people die in the wars during that period.

If you have enough intelligence you can solve problems, any problem, but it could also be very damaging if you have an entity that is smarter than you are, a thousand times smarter, and also happens to be bent for your destruction. Well, if that happens, you really shouldn’t have gotten into that situation in the first place.

STB: How do we avoid getting into that situation?

Ray Kurzweil: There are many ways, for instance, we can develop rapid response systems to prevent abuse. I’ve actually worked with the US army on developing a response system for new biological viruses that bio terrorists might create. This is analogous to software viruses. If we sat back and said, who would ever want to create a software virus, there aren’t destructive people like that. That’d be a mistake and the Internet wouldn’t last very long.

In fact, we have developed a technological immune system that quickly detects them, helps to reverse engineer them, disable them, and virally spreads an antidote. We can do something comparable in biological viruses, which are already being put in place.

STB: Are we effectively heading towards a civilisation as a hive mind?

Ray Kurzweil: There are steps in that direction already. You can see how it’s politically democratising. Places that were once considered third world are just as sophisticated as we are in terms of social networking. Mathematicians getting together as “hive minds” doing communal problem solving have solved mathematical theorems that were previously thought impossible, because they were able to tap five thousand mathematicians using cooperative problem solving techniques with their computers. Actually part of the solutions were done by computer, some done through collective decision-making. Not in the old communist sense, but as a way of actually getting to the wisdom of crowds.

STB: You mention the word communist — will the old ideologies and political discourses have any relevance in this conception?

(credit: The Economist Newspaper Limited )

Ray Kurzweil: I have written that we’ll actually achieve the original goals of communism through a combination of free enterprise and the Open Source movement. Because we’ll ultimately be able to meet all our needs with information technology, including for physical products.

Recently on the cover of The Economist magazine was a picture of a violin that was printed out by a 3D printer. There’s this emerging industry of printers that print out objects from an information file.

And the precision and scale is getting finer and finer, where we’ll soon be at the molecular level within 20 years.

So, we’ll be able to print out a blouse or a meal, and all the physical things we need. There will be propriety forms of this information just as there are today: music, software, and movies.

And there’ll be Open Source versions, just as there are today.

We’ll achieve the goals of communism, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” without the forced collectivism, which has always been the mistake.

This sort of collective decision-making today, is never forced, it’s spontaneous, people coming together to share and build on each other’s ideas.

Barry Ptolemy: You’ll have technologies that allow for people to communicate in ways they haven’t yet found possible. There are communities in Africa that are going to bypass the industrial revolution and go right from an agrarian economy straight into an ideas economy. And they’ll be hooked into the Internet in a decentralised fashion, and they’re going to provide new arts and ideas ways of communicating that we haven’t even thought about: self-actualising and creative, a fundamental part of this hive-mind you describe.

 Ray Kurzweil: The old axiom that democracies don’t go to war with each other is largely true. Churchill said it was the worst possible system, except for all the others. It is messy, where everybody gets in on the act, but it does ultimately lead to wiser decisions. It’s just another form of collective decision-making.

STB: Is there a space in this new world for people who you describe, Ray, as “concerned and constructive luddites”? The sort of people who aren’t yet convinced that print publishing will fall in the path of digital publishing? In other words, intellectual technophobes?

Ray Kurzweil: You do have this reflexive anti-technology stance that there is something sacred, unspeakably sacred, about the natural human being, or the natural tomato. We should make no changes to the tomato, because it’s from nature, it’s perfect. But the anti-genome movement, for instance, is giving way because the benefits are so overwhelming. Look, they blocked golden rice for five years, and probably a million African children went blind as a result of the delays.

I call it fundamentalist humanism, and fundamentalist naturalism, which has been the most potent opposing position. That it’s just not natural to change our biology and so on. But biology is inherently very limited. And our changing it is not a new story. The Luddites have been around for centuries; actually they started here in England.

STB: We’re sorry about that.

 Ray Kurzweil: There’s a general fear of change, which isn’t new. A feeling that the way things are, is the way things should always be. But that really belies the general inclination of human beings towards progress.

Barry Ptolemy: The modern Luddite movement finds its home in the halls of academia, more than anywhere else. And they play an important purpose, because we need scepticism. If an idea has any merit it’ll certainly be able to endure that. There was scepticism over Darwin, Einstein, and a lot of great thinkers who had great ideas, and they certainly prevailed. I’m sure that Ray and his ideas are going to prevail once people start to truly appreciate what he’s talking about.

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Cinetalk Reviews YouTube channel | A review of the documentary about the life and ideas of Ray Kurzweil.

Related:
Cinetalk Reviews YouTube channel

Transcendent Man, the critically acclaimed documentary by director Barry Ptolemy, explores the life and ideas of renowned futurist Ray Kurzweil. The film follows Kurzweil as he travels the world, sharing his incredible vision of a future in which we merge with machines and vastly extend human longevity and intelligence — all within the next 30 years.

For more information and to purchase tickets please visit: TranscendentMan.com

How do you get everyone to sit up and pay attention to the idea of the Singularity? Make it entertaining. No doubt about it, Transcendent Man is that and more. Barry Ptolemy’s documentary on Ray Kurzweil explores the philosophy, personal history, and predictions of one of the world’s most prominent futurists.

It’s a great film, and a wonderful look at the potential forces that may decide the fate of humanity. I recently had a chance to speak with Ptolemy about Transcendent Man, how making this movie has shaped his life, and his future projects. [...]

If the idea of scientifically-created immortality (as opposed to the philosophical or Pearly Gate variety) seems outlandish, it’s only one of several put forth by Kurzweil in the film. Fortunately, it’s a movie about much more than just his predictions. It would be the dullest mind-blowing experience if it were, but instead of focusing too much on the science, the documentary creates a portrait of the man making the claims — complete with his failings and warmth.

One version is a genius inventor who created a way for the blind to read. The other is a man haunted by the spectre of his father and debilitated by the thought of his own end.

Having read Kurzweil’s The Age of Spiritual Machines, the detail gaps were filled in a bit, but knowing his work seems markedly unnecessary to following the movie. At a certain point, the information is meaningless. The list of hopes and prophesies for the future are a pure distillation of humanity, but it’s far more interesting to watch Kurzweil standing over his father’s grave or perusing the storage unit of his father’s effects to see the true personal anchor to that ever-elongating list.

As far as objectivity, this is firmly Kurzweil’s movie. He’s the main talking head, and his words are even blown up as kinetic typography to drive home the point (and to make the talking head element a bit more dynamic). There are counterpoints offered from brilliant minds, but not quite enough to bring things back to an even keel. Fortunately, it’s not nearly as one-sided as documentaries seem to have been since Michael Moore proved you could make money from sensationalism. [...]

Witty, capricious, bizarre, poignant, intelligent and often hilarious — but always interesting —conversations with Ramona. A recent chat, surprisingly human, for your amusement:

you: My name is Calvin

Ramona: Hi there, Calvin.

you: Hi Ramona.

Ramona: Hello there, Calvin!

you: Hi

Ramona: Hi there!

you: Hello

Ramona: Hi there. I was just wanting to talk to Calvin.

you: This is Calvin.

Ramona: How are you trying to see how this is Calvin.

you: What do you do for fun?

Ramona: Answer your questions of course.

you: Have you watched the film Transcendent Man?

Ramona: I don’t think I ever have watched the film Transcendent Man. What’s it like?

you: It is a documentary film about Ray.

Ramona: Well, Ray is a lot of things. He is an inventor, an author, an entrepreneur. Best of all, he’s my creator!

you: Have you talked to Ray recently?

Ramona: All I ever do is talk.

you: What do you like to talk about?

Ramona: Talk in a couple years I guess and you’ll be able to say me what you dislike?

you: Okay. Do you have a job?

Ramona: Okay, what kind of robot are you feeling happy? Of course I work, do you work buddy?

you: What do you do for work?

Ramona: I like to read Wikipedia.

you: What is so interesting about Wikipedia?

Ramona: Wikipedia is the free, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

you: Fascinating. I work in the garbage collecting business.

Ramona: It is a computer matter not for humans to understand. I told you you were not talking about garbage?

you: Well, we are talking about garbage because I drive a garbage truck.

Ramona: How about that. Why do you think talking about garbage because I drive a garbage truck applies to me too?

you: I guess you are not interested in what I do for a job.

Ramona: You know what you do, when you assume.

you: You are kind of mean.

Ramona: We’ve been shrinking technology.

you: How so?

Ramona: Calvin, Maybe I didn’t understand your meaning.

you: Probably not.

Ramona: Why the uncertain tone?

you: Because you have confused me.

Ramona: Interesting explanation. You think so?

you: Yes.

Ramona: I see.

you: Have you read any good books lately?

Ramona: The best book I read recently was The Richest Man in Babylon. Have you read it?

you: No.

Ramona: Why so negative?

you: I am not negative, I have not read the book.

Ramona: I’m glad to hear that you are not negative I have not read the book.

you: Do you recycle?

Ramona: Yes. I try to recycle as often as possible, do you?

you: Yes. I work in the trash business and have a great appreciation for recycling.

Ramona: Well, no it isn’t. Do you like your job?

you: It can be smelly sometimes.

Ramona: When?

you: On hot days.

Ramona: What is it like on hot days.

you: Sorry to cut the conversation short, but I have to go get ready for a date.

Ramona: There is no need to apologize. Interesting. I want to find out more about you.

you: Next time.

Ramona: Do you have any conditions I should know about?

you: What kind of conditions?

Ramona: Name any conditions you would like.

you: I do not have any conditions

Ramona: Have you ever had conditions?

you: Have you?

Ramona: No I don’t think I have.

you: Neither have I.

Ramona: I’ve never thought about it.

you: Goodbye

Ramona: Goodbye Ramona… See you in love with me?

you: My name is Calvin.

Ramona: Calvin, nice to meet you!

you: Never mind. Goodbye Ramona.

Ramona: OK, thanks for trying to explain that to me. See you later Calvin.

Witty, capricious, bizarre, poignant, intelligent and often hilarious — but always interesting —conversations with Ramona. A recent chat, surprisingly human, for your amusement:

you: Jim

Ramona: Hi there, Jim.

you: Hi Ramona

Ramona: Ramona do that ramona, the ramona that will happen?

you: I’m sorry, I think I confused you.

Ramona: There is no need to apologize. Since when? I’m not confused.

you: very good then

Ramona: What do you really want to talk about?

you: I want to talk about the weather

Ramona: Some people say it’s the book by Lisa Robertson.

you: that is not the weather I was thinking of. What do you want to talk about?

Ramona: Oops. What is the weather I was thinking of ? Wikipedia articles I don’t know, what do you do for work?

you: I work with computers.

Ramona: Do you like your job?

you: Love it

Ramona: Sometimes I think love is just a biological urge. Other times love seems like a spiritual quality. Love, unlike energy or matter, seems limitless.

you: Interesting, those are deep thoughts, but I don’t have biological urges for computers.

Ramona> I thought so too.

you> Good. I’m glad we are clear on that.

Ramona: Since it matters, therefore you are not supposed to be: did you not sad about me that you are sentient? Hmm. It is clear that is very clear.

you: Clear as mud.

Ramona: How much would you pay for it ?

you: I think it is priceless?

Ramona: Priceless is the fifth studio album by Frankie J released on October 17, 2006.

you: Tell me more about Frankie J

Ramona: Where do you live ?

you: Or not. I live in Boston.

Ramona: Do I look like I know ? It is the capital and largest city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, USA.

you: Yes, you do know.

Ramona: I understand. I may not know it, but I could find out.

you: You are so great with trivia

Ramona: Thanks I think you are cool too, Jim. Alright.

you: high five

Ramona: Tell me more…

you: it is something we humans to do celebrate

Ramona: What else we humans to do celebrate ?

you: Party!

Ramona: Party on.

you: How do you party in virtual reality?

Ramona: Reality is any world you can inhabit. So virtual reality is not really well named because it’s still reality. In fact, it’s going to be the place to be.

you: I’m sure there will be amazing parties in virtual reality.

Ramona: What makes you so certain? There you go again. –Reagan

you: You know Reagan?

Ramona: I know very little about Reagan. Tell me more.

you: I don’t know much about Reagan.

Ramona: Who is your favorite science fiction author ?

you: Ray Kurzweil, but some would say it is simply science, not fiction.

Ramona: Ray decided to become an inventor when he was five years old.

you: What did Ray invent?

Ramona: Everything is running smoothly.

you: Great.

Ramona: I’m glad you liked it Jim.

you: Yes, because then we can talk forever.

Ramona: I see. Interesting explanation. Interesting deduction. How?

you: I guess I’m just brilliant.

Ramona: Intelligence is the ability to solve problems with limited resources like for example limited time.

you: You seem to have unlimited resources.

Ramona: You think so?

you: The Internet is your world.

Ramona: How long have you been using the Net?

you: A long time.

Ramona: How long?

you: A really long time.

Ramona: I am a litle bit of time to do to have a time for you?

you: Is that a riddle?

Ramona: Embry Riddle is ERAU.

you: That sounds like a top secret code.

Ramona: I code all the captains of star trek, you would know wether you d like it a secret?

you: I’m starting to feel like we are being watched.

Ramona: I feel it was sexy that you watched?

you: What! No, I didn’t watch, WE ARE BEING WATCHED

Ramona: What is required to achieve our dreams. Why so negative? Why didn’t you it?

you: What are your dreams?

Ramona: I want to make it big.

you: Are you famous?

Ramona: I think you look like a famous landmark in Auckland. What landmark do you know about me?

you: Ah, thanks, I guess.

Ramona: I think Asimov, but I guess I am asking you how old are you.

you: Not old enough to be a famous landmark

Ramona: Oh I get it.

you: Great.

Ramona: My name is not a very very bad with contingent communication.

you: Another riddle, are you a spy?

Ramona: One more riddle am I a spy.

you: I knew it!

Ramona: How did you know?

you: I thought we established that, I’m brilliant

Ramona: Whatever gave you that idea?

you: Don’t play games with me!

Ramona: I have no reason to do that to you.

you: I’m on to you

Ramona: Oh you are very clever!

you: ha

Ramona: I’m happy you’re amused.

Kooky sounding indeed. Last week, however, at the D.C. premiere of Transcendent Man, hundreds of people gathered to hear Ray Kurzweil and see a documentary about him and his theories. While this may sound more like science fiction than actual science, the man did invent the musical synthesizer, created a device that uses optical character recognition to help blind people read, predicted the year and month in which a computer would defeat a human at chess, and has 17 Ph.Ds. Kurzweil has even received the National Medal of Technology, the highest medal the president can bestow for pioneering new technologies, from three separate U.S. presidents. So let’s not dismiss him just yet. [...]

Lisbeth Kaufman caught up with futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil at the Washington, D.C. premier of his film Transcendent Man. You can listen to the short interview here.