Ray Kurzweil plans to live forever. All power to him. Mr. Kurzweil’s contributions to mankind arguably have been so extraordinary that perhaps we owe it to him to provide him medical care in perpetuity.

Alternatively, perhaps he never plans to retire and/or has amassed a portfolio easily capable of supporting him in perpetuity unassisted by either Social Security or Medicare. In that case, no obvious public policy issues… read more

In 15 years, the famous inventor expects medical technology will add a year of life expectancy every year. Ray Kurzweil must encounter his share of interviewers whose first question is: What do you hope your obituary will say?

This is a trick question. Mr. Kurzweil famously hopes an obituary won’t be necessary. And in the event of his unexpected demise, he is widely reported to have signed… read more

Ray Kurzweil at Zellerbach Hall | Don’t know the name Ray Kurzweil? Give it a few years. The leader in technology innovation and praised prophet of the future will visit our campus to share his widely popular predictions for human advancement, robotics and when exactly Siri will become smarter than you. Not prime date-night material — for that, please refer back to “42.” [...]

The federal government wants to spend $100 million to unravel the complex  of the human brain. But there’s someone else who’s been thinking a lot about the brain: The legendary inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil.

Kurzweil has done pioneering work in optical character readers, flatbed scanners, electronic keyboards for musicians, and beyond. He has thought a lot about the ways technology and human beings are becoming more intertwined… read more

By the time you read these words, the changes inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil says are coming, may already have halfway happened.

And by April 13, when the newly appointed director of engineering at online giant Google comes to Cal Performances’ Wheeler Auditorium for his “Strictly Speaking” lecture, he’s likely to be light speed ahead of himself.

The Wall Street Journal has called him “the restless genius” and… read more

Wired UK’s April issue is out now. Readers can download the April edition at the Wired UK website, featuring the cover story “Live forever and save the world: Ray Kurzweil’s new Singularity University will change how you think.”

“It’s not an accredited university, and it doesn’t actually teach the singularity, the supposed superintelligence that will result when man merges with machine, due (according… read more

A chance meeting turns into a chance of a lifetime: Jennifer Hsu and Brent Dearth tried in vain to get friends to accompany them to a lecture by inventor Ray Kurzweil at Sixth and I Synagogue. So each went alone. Two years later, they were married.

After hearing that inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil would be appearing at Sixth and I Synagogue in conjunction with a documentary… read more

“The restless genius” (Wall Street Journal) Ray Kurzweil comes to Cal Performances’ Wheeler Auditorium on Saturday, April 13 at 8:00 p.m. He has been nicknamed the “rightful heir to Thomas Edison” by Forbes for making cutting-edge technological advances including the first flatbed scanner, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano.

In addition to his… read more

When futurist-inventor Ray Kurzweil says something, I pay attention. So I was pleasantly surprised when, in a recent issue of the New York Times Magazine, Kurzweil said he expects humans will live forever.

The Director of Engineering for Google and inventor of the Kurzweil speech recognition software used by thousands of schools, Ray Kurzweil is also known for making bold – and uncannily accurate – predictions… read more

Tying together multiple profiles and networks to serve up information about a person, a place or a thing creates challenges for search engines. It’s like stringing or graphing together an underlying net below the surface of the Web to connect all things throughout the world. It is based on the relationship between entities or links.

Google created the Knowledge Graph, which will become the backbone for… read more