"A computer prodigy, at age 28 Kurzweil invented a machine that could scan printed material and read it aloud to the blind, using synthesized speech. In 1982, he founded Kurzweil Applied Intelligence to commercialize his speech-recognition research, in this case using computers to transform spoken words into printed text. The idea was good enough to attract some big-name backers, including Harvard University's endowment fund and Xerox Corp.'s venture-capital arm."