Raymond Kurzweil

Biography

Raymond Kurzweil is an American inventor, computer scientist, author, and futurist who grew up in Queens, New York City. He attended MIT and in 1974 started Kurzweil Computer Products, where he led development of an omni-font optical character recognition system. That work led to the Kurzweil Reading Machine, a device that reads text aloud for blind people. He also founded Kurzweil Music Systems, which produced the Kurzweil K250 synthesizer. His books include The Age of Intelligent Machines, published in 1990, and The Singularity Is Near, published in 2005. In 1999 he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and in 2002 he entered the National Inventors Hall of Fame for the reading machine. In 2010 he wrote and co-produced The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future, and the documentary Transcendent Man (2009) profiles him and his ideas. Plug & Pray (2010) and The Singularity (2012) also feature him.

78years old

Turns 79 on February 12in 119 days

Born February 12, 1948Queens
Star sign: AquariusThe sign runs January 20 to February 18
Also credited as Ray Kurzweil, the ultimate thinking machine, Edison's rightful heir, RK and restless genius

Movie Career

Films: 3
Career span: 4 years2009 to 2013

Every film, newest first

2013Terms and Conditions May ApplyIMDb rating 7.3
2009How to Live ForeverIMDb rating 6.1
2009Transcendent ManIMDb rating 7.1

Genres

Documentary

Did you know?!

First role
In 1965, Kurzweil was invited onto the CBS show I've Got a Secret. There he played a piano piece that a computer he had built had composed.
A first
After learning about the new machine on The Today Show, Stevie Wonder went on to use the first production Kurzweil Reading Machine, which began a long-term association with Kurzweil.
A change of course
Stevie Wonder's complaint in 1982 about how electronic synthesizers compared with traditional instruments spurred Kurzweil to build machines that copied real instrument sounds. Kurzweil Music Systems appeared that same year, and the Kurzweil K250 followed in 1984, able to imitate several instruments.
Behind the camera
The 2010 film The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future was directed by Anthony Waller, and Kurzweil both wrote and co-produced it, drawing in part on his book of the same name.
Behind the award
For inventing the Kurzweil K250, Kurzweil was given a Technical Grammy Award. The award was presented to him on February 8, 2015.