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Father
of the Kurzweil Reading Machine Helped the Blind while Reshaping
Information Technology for the World.
Palo Alto, California (May 16, 2002)
Imagine enabling the blind to read ordinary
printed materials, along the way pioneering information technologies
that profoundly impact how the world processes information
for decades to come. This is just the surface of the many
amazing accomplishments of Raymond Kurzweil, inventor of the
Kurzweil Reading Machine, who was announced today as an inductee
into this year’s class of inventors to be honored by
the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The announcement was
made at a ceremony at Hewlett-Packard Company, the leading
corporate sponsor of the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
The Kurzweil Reading Machine was the first
computer to transform random text into computer-spoken words,
enabling blind and visually impaired people to read any printed
materials. When this first print-to-speech reading machine
was invented in 1976, Kurzweil’s technology was widely
regarded as the most significant advancement for the blind
since Braille’s introduction in 1829. It not only dramatically
impacted the lives of blind people (85 percent of blind college
students are estimated to have used one), it pioneered several
computer technologies which have become separate industries
that are still thriving today.
The world was introduced to the Reading Machine
when Walter Cronkite used it to close the evening news with
“And that‚s the way it is, January 13, 1976.”
For the first time, Cronkite did not speak the words himself.
Instead he had the Reading Machine deliver them.
Stevie Wonder heard about the Kurzweil Reading
Machine that week, and bought the first one. Kurzweil and
Wonder developed a friendship that would later evolve into
the development of music technology based on Stevie Wonder’s
suggestions.
The Reading Machine is just one of many technologies
resulting from Kurzweil’s expertise in pattern recognition,
and his innate ability to envision the application of technologies
far ahead of the mainstream. In 1963, when he was just 15
years old, he wrote his first mainframe computer program to
help with his tedious summer job of processing statistical
results. IBM distributed the program to researchers everywhere.
In high school, this son of an orchestra conductor wondered
why some music evoked emotion, and in 1965 Kurzweil developed
a computer program that composed music to emulate the compositions
of famous composers such as Mozart. That invention won him
first prize at the International Science Fair, a national
prize in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, and an appearance
on the game show “I’ve Got a Secret” with
Steve Allen.
While a student at the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, he wrote software to match high schoolers‚
interests with appropriate colleges. The program’s purchase
by Harcourt Brace & World funded his college education.
A few years after graduating from MIT in 1970 with majors
in computer science and literature, he formed a company to
continue his interest in developing pattern recognition technology,
such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR). He advanced the
technology significantly by developing the first omni-font
OCR in 1974. Prior to Kurzweil’s contribution, OCR software
could only read certain fonts with precise spacing and in
very high quality print. Kurzweil and his team developed software
that understood the abstract qualities of letter shapes and
could read any font. The technology, now called Xerox TextBridge,
is still marketed and developed 29 years after its initial
development.
Kurzweil developed OCR and other technologies
before he had an application for them through the Reading
Machine. He said, “I really had a solution and was looking
for a problem. Then, I happened to sit next to a blind gentleman
on a plane. He told me that he traveled the world for his
company, and that his blindness was a characteristic, not
a handicap. There was only one area in which he was not able
to match the abilities of sighted people: reading ordinary
printed materials. Only a small percentage of books was translated
to Braille, and there was a great lag between the time materials
were published and translated.” Kurzweil’s omni-font
OCR gave all visually impaired people a solution for reading.
In developing the Reading Machine, Kurzweil
also made major advancements in scanning technology. He and
his team developed the first Charge Couple Device (CCD) flatbed
scanner-the now-ubiquitous scanners in our workplaces and
homes. They also developed the first text-to-speech synthesis.
His
advancements were at least a decade ahead of any other similar
introductions, and would eventually be used in applications
such as in-car computers and phone response systems.
Other contributions include the Kurzweil 250
music synthesizer, developed in 1984 after Stevie Wonder asked
the inventor if he could engineer a synthesizer that could
realistically recreate the rich sounds of orchestral instruments.
Now every composer can have a virtual orchestra at his or
her fingertips. Also, Kurzweil invented Kurzweil Voice Report,
the first commercially marketed large vocabulary speech recognition,
a system used by hands-impaired individuals and anyone who
is unable to type at high speed.
Kurzweil has founded nine companies since his
first one in 1973. Today, FAT
KAT (Financial Accelerating Transactions from Kurzweil
Adaptive Technologies) uses pattern recognition to make stock
market investment decisions. Kurzweil Medical Learning Company
simulates doctor/patient encounters for medical education
and reference KurzweilAI.net is the “home of the big
thinkers” discussing the future of technology and its
impact, hosted by Ramona, Kurzweil’s virtual reality
alter-ego. At KurzweilCyberArt.com,
original poetry can be patterned after the masters and AARON,
a cybernetic artist, creates original artwork. Kurzweil Educational
Systems continues to develop the next generation of print-to-speech
technology to aid both the blind and the learning disabled
such as the dyslexic, visually impaired and those learning
to read.
Kurzweil’s next frontier is the human
mind. The Kurzweil Reading Machine is considered one of the
first machines to successfully incorporate Artificial Intelligence,
an area that the inventor continues to passionately explore.
He explained, “It turns out, the foundation of human
intelligence is not logical thinking, but pattern recognition.
We learn by recognizing previous relevant experiences.”
Among his writings on the topic of artificial intelligence
are the acclaimed books, “The Age of Intelligent Machines”
and “The Age of Spiritual Machines” as well as
numerous widely quoted articles.
Raymond Kurzweil has received many awards, in
addition to ten honorary doctorates and accolades from three
U.S. presidents. He said, “Being inducted into the National
Inventors Hall of Fame is an important award to me. Although
I am an author and entrepreneur, I primarily consider myself
to be an inventor. I feel like I am being recognized by my
peers.”
Other noteworthy awards include: 2001 Lemelson-MIT
Award, 1999 National Medal of Technology from President Clinton,
1998 Stevie Wonder Vision Award, 1995 Access Prize from the
American Foundation for the Blind, 1994 Dickson Prize from
Carnegie Mellon University, 1991 Louis Braille Award from
the
Associated Services, 1990 Engineer of the Year Award from
the readers of Design News Magazine, 1988 Inventor of the
Year Award from MIT, Boston Museum of Science and Boston Patent
Law Association, and 1986 Distinguished Inventor Award from
Intellectual Property Owners.
The not-for-profit National Inventors Hall of
Fame® is the premier organization in America dedicated
to honoring and fostering creativity and invention. Each year
a new class of inventors are inducted into the National Hall
of Fame in recognition of their patented inventions that make
human, social and economic progress possible. Founded in 1973
by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office and the National
Council of Intellectual Property Law Associations, the Hall's
permanent home is Akron, Ohio, and serves as both a museum
and an educational programming resource. For more information
or to nominate an inventor, go to http://www.invent.org.
HP’s sponsorship of the National Inventors
Hall of Fame is part of the company’s Invent sponsorship
program, which celebrates the significant impact of technological
invention on people’s lives by supporting creative and
pioneering organizations around the world. More information
on HP’s sponsorship programs can be found at: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/sponsorships.
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