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Blio

Ray Kurzweil's e-reader turns a page

When Ray Kurzweil showed off his Blio e-book software at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the pitch was somewhat novel.

While Amazon and Barnes & Noble seemed most focused on their own hardware efforts, Blio was focused on improving e-book reading for the PC, in all its multimedia and color-screen glory.

However, it has taken Blio a lot longer than planned to bring the software to market. In the months it has taken Kurzweil's team to deliver the first version of the software, the giants of the e-reader category have managed to get versions of their reader programs … Read more

Ray Kurzweil tries to build a better e-reader

LAS VEGAS--Ray Kurzweil knows a little something about e-readers.

The computing pioneer, who among other things helped develop modern text recognition software, has been working to use digital technology to improve reading for the past 30 years. After years of work on how computers can help those with learning disabilities, Kurzweil is now taking aim at the masses.

His latest project, Blio, is an effort to improve the emerging electronic book field with software that turns e-books into more than just a digital copy of the print edition. Blio, which is due out next month, is software that combines a … Read more