With his books and essays about the singularity, it’s easy to forget that Ray Kurzweil built his name on his very successful inventions. Therefore, when he unveils a new invention, it’s a big deal. His latest venture is the Blio e-reader software, which will be distributed for free to a variety of platforms including the PC and iPhone. The software looks to have a very slick interface and can read books aloud via a synthesized voice – a clutch feature for visually impaired readers.
Here Kurzweil and (who I assume is) a business partner show off some of Blio’s key features, including the aforementioned text-to-speech, embedded Web browsers contained within the page of a book, 3D page turning, and more.
Blio is set to launch in February and will be made available for free.