Ray Kurzweil

PBS NewsHour covers Singularity University

by Socrates
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Optimists at Silicon Valley think tank Singularity University are pushing the frontiers of human progress through innovation and emerging technologies, looking to greater longevity and better health. As part of his series on Making $ense of financial news, correspondent Paul Solman explores a future of “exponential growth” as envisioned by Singularity University.

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TIME Magazine’s 10 Questions for Ray Kurzweil

by Socrates
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As part of their TimeFrames issue – which reconsiders the recent past, TIME Magazine asks futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil for his prediction – of what’s to come in the future. Here is the video of TIME’s 10 questions to Ray and his answers:

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Mobile Innovators: BestBuy Features Ray Kurzweil on Super Bowl Ad

by Socrates
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“I’m Ray Kurzweil. I gave your words a voice.” This was Ray’s punchline during yesterday’s feature BestBuy Super Bowl ad also acknowledging a number of other mobile innovators. The commercial focused the spotlight on ten technology innovators who have changed the way we use our phones: Philippe Kahn: created the camera phone and MotionX Neil Papworth: sent the first SMS message Paul & David Bettner: created Words With Friends Kevin Systrom: creator of the Instagram free photo sharing application Jim McKelvey: created Square Mobile Pay Chris Barton and Avery Wang: helped create Shazam Daniel Henderson: video sharing Kurzweil’s text-to-speech invention is utilized on mobile devices by enabling the reading of information for a visually challenged person, or it may be used to augment the reading of a text message or email. It is often used with voice recognition to answer [...]

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Singularity University Day 1: Meeting Ray and Peter

by Socrates
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My very first day at Singularity University was as intense as it was amazing. I got to personally meet and shake hands with both Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis. Our very full schedule started at 7:30 am with breakfast and went through program overviews and introductions, eventually culminating with a mind-blowing spirit-pumping opening ceremony at the San Francisco Computer History Museum. At the consequent wine-and-cheese cocktail party we got to mingle with other SingularityU alumni and dozens of Silicon Valley VIP’s. For those for whom that was not enough there was a Greek-turned-Brazilian dance party in the main student hall on campus which went on until the early hours of the morning. *** A former student who took the program last year told me that after the end he went home and slept 14 hours per day for 2 weeks. [...]

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The Technological Singularity Goes Mainstream (Again)

by Socrates
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The technological singularity goes mainstream again (and again). The last 12 months or so we have witnessed an unparalleled growth of mainstream coverage of transhumanism, the singularity, artificial intelligence and Ray Kurzweil. Some of the more notable mentions include: PBS on Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity; the NY Times’ Humans are so Yesterday; Ray Kurzweil on the Daily Show with John Stewart and New Zeland TV features Singularity University. (Yeah, it does seem that Michael Anissimov is right to say that Transhumanism Has Already Won.) Yesterday, Time Magazine’s cover story was about Ray Kurzweil and Barry Ptolemy‘s long anticipated feature documentary Transcendent Man. It is hard to get any more mainstream than that. I hope that people will go to watch the film en masse, listen to what Ray has to say and start thinking about the vital issues stemming [...]

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New Zealand TV Features Singularity University

by Socrates
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The concept of the technological singularity is becoming more and more mainstream and is exhibiting what seems to be an exponential growth in media coverage. Just some of the more recent examples include feature articles on the NY Times and coverage on PBS TV network together with the widely anticipated big screen movie premieres of both Transcendent Man and The Singularity Is Near. Now even New Zealand’s 60 minutes TV show run a short but very interesting documentary news report featuring Singularity University. Check out the video below which touches on a number of topics related to the singularity such as Ray Kurzweil‘s predictions, immortality, nanotechnology, exponential growth, brain uploading, synthetic biology, space exploration and others. Related articles Ray Kurzweil at the Daily Show with John Stewart (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) PBS Reports On Ray Kurzweil and The Singularity (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Singularity Podcast: Barry [...]

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PBS Reports On Ray Kurzweil and The Singularity

by Socrates
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The technological singularity is indeed going mainstream. A few weeks ago it was the New York Times publishing an article called Merely Human? That’s So Yesterday. Today it is PBS. The first video is the full PBS report on some of the issues surrounding the singularity. The second video is part of Ray Kurweil‘s interview where he talks about God, the Universe and the evolution of intelligence. Enjoy! Related articles by Zemanta Ray Kurzweil at the Daily Show with John Stewart (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Justin Rattner on the Singularity (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Singularity Podcast: Barry Ptolemy on Transcendent Man (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Singularity Goes Mainstream: NY Times Says Humans Are “So Yesterday” (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com) Aubrey de Grey’s Singularity Podcast: Longevity Escape Velocity Maybe Closer Than We Think (singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com)

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Ray Kurzweil at the Daily Show with John Stewart

by Socrates
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This is a funny video of Ray Kurzweil on the Daily Show with John Stewart. While the video is anything but serious, some of the points it makes are. Warning: Rated at least PG 13. Viewer Discretion is Advised.

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