Penn State Live - "Within 20 years we will understand how the brain works and we'll have artificial intelligence that commands emotional intelligence at human levels. Being a human being is about going beyond our limitations -- we're the only species that can."

Ray Kurzweil, award-winning inventor, futurist and national best-selling author, forecasting the future of technology. Kurzweil spoke in Schwab Auditorium last night (Tuesday, Oct. 26) and was the second lecturer of the 2010-11 Distinguished Speaker Series held by the Student Programming Association.

Centre Daily Times - Inventor and best-selling author Ray Kurzweil will speak at 8 p.m. Tuesday in Penn State’s Schwab Auditorium as part of the 2010-11 Student Programming Association Distinguished Speakers Series.

Kurzweil is the author of four national best-sellers including “The Age of Spiritual Machines” and “The Singularity is Near.” He is ranked No. 8 on Forbes Inc. magazine’s entrepreneurs and was named one of “16 Revolutionaries Who Made America” by PBS.

Among Kurzweil’s accomplishments is being the principal developer of the first CCD flat-bed scanner, omni-font optical character recognition system and print-to-speech reading machine for the blind.