What happens when non-biological implants in our bodies — along the lines of cochlear implants to improve hearing in the deaf — include brain-related devices that might enhance our memories? Will we still be “us”? Will we be more of a cyborg than we were if, say, we had another type of implant? And for those who believe we would not be, at what point do we… read more

I first heard about Singularity University from a friend who was a student in the very first SU cohort. He told me that being at SU changed his outlook on life. I was not surprised as I was a big fan of Ray Kurzweil’s (co-founder of SU) books and they had a similar effect on my life.

It is because of Kurzweil’s writing on intelligent machines… read more

It wasn’t until Ray Kurzweil’s 2005 book, The Singularity Is Near, however, that the public started becoming more interested in the theory. In his book, Kurzweil predicts the technological singularity is very much on the horizon and will occur by 2045.

In this new world, Kurzweil believes there will be no clear distinction between human and machine or real reality and virtual reality. In practical terms,… read more

Sunday: Ray Kurzweil lecture | Ray Kurzweil has been described as “the restless genius” by The Wall Street Journal, and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes. Kurzweil hits the Smith Center stage as a part of the Audi Speaker Series, discussing his latest book, How to Create a Mind. Tickets are $24-$59 and the event starts at 7:30 p.m.

When: Sunday, Jan. 27,… read more

Electronic musician Steve Aoki is a self-professed “Apple geek” and otherwise a big fan of technology.

For his new music video for the track “Singularity,” which Mashable is presenting for the first time exclusively, he recruited futurist and technologist Ray Kurzweil to participate. Kurzweil, who became Google’s Director of Engineering earlier this year, is famous for his predictions about the future in which human minds will… read more

Text-to-voice technology has a long history. The famed technologist Ray Kurzweil created an early reading software product in 1976, which in 1996 led to the founding of Kurzweil Educational Systems, a leading maker of reading software for PCs and Macs.

However, the Kurzweil software costs as much as $1,500 a seat, while some of the other PC-based text-to-speech products cost $50 to $70, Chen said. “We charge… read more