Ray Kurzweil believes computers will soon think like humans and ultimately merge with us, a notion he has dubbed “the singularity.”

That idea persuaded the former inventor in 2007 to form Singularity University, an institution housed at the NASA Research Park on Moffett Field in Mountain View, which teaches students about artificial intelligence and other topics straight out of science fiction.

While the institution isn’t… read more

Some have called inventor, author, and future-thinker Raymond Kurzweil the Thomas Edison of the 21st century, and rightly so. The National Inventor Hall of Fame inductee began his career making technology that helped blind people read — Stevie Wonder, in fact, is a good friend because of this — and then went on to pen books about computer science, nutrition, spirituality, and the merging of men with… read more

Ray Kurzweil, the 64-Year-Old Futurist, will appear at SXSW Interactive for the first time March 12 to take part in a keynote conversation. An MIT graduate and subject of the 2009 doc Transcendent Man, he has developed groundbreaking speech-recognition programs, advanced music synthesizers and artificial-intelligence investment software through his Wellesley, Mass.-based Kurzweil Technologies.

His fans range from Stevie Wonder, who challenged him to create Kurzweil Music Systems, to Roland Emmerich, who sought… read more

We’re into the Monday doldrums at SXSW. Three straight days of walking and talking and drinking, yet somehow people still feel compelled to go outside and keep talking and walking and drinking. On a weekday! The nerve of this town.

Meanwhile, Skype has paid this “town crier” to read Tweets out loud on the street, making the concept of shouting into the void all too literal. It’s almost… read more