Inventor Heralded as the 'Rightful Heir to Thomas Edison' to Deliver
Insight Into the Videogame Industry in 2028
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Celebrated inventor and futurist
Ray Kurzweil will deliver a keynote address at the 2008 Game Developers
Conference (GDC) inspiring attendees to take a dramatic look at the future
of games and electronic entertainment. Described as "the rightful heir to
Thomas Edison" by Inc. magazine and "the ultimate thinking machine" by
Forbes, Kurzweil is uniquely positioned to speak to the GDC audience about
the next two decades of videogames and what the landscape may well look
like come GDC 2028. GDC, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated
to the advancement of interactive entertainment, returns to the Moscone
Convention Center in San Francisco for a week of networking, learning, and
inspiration February 18-22, 2008. Complete details and registration for the
conference are available now at http://www.gdconf.com.
"Bringing the future to life today has always been at the heart of the
game industry, so it's essential to have our vision refreshed by one of our
greatest living thinkers," said Jamil Moledina, executive director of the
Game Developers Conference. "As a technology inventor and prophetic
visionary, Ray Kurzweil is that rare individual who can inspire the next
evolutionary step forward in what games can do."
Ray Kurzweil has repeatedly been recognized as an intellectual pioneer
by some of the most respected American media sources. He was described as
"the restless genius" by the Wall Street Journal, and "the ultimate
thinking machine" by Forbes. Inc. magazine ranked him #8 among
entrepreneurs in the United States, calling him the "rightful heir to
Thomas Edison," and PBS included him as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made
America," along with other inventors of the past two centuries. As one of
the leading inventors of our time, Kurzweil was the principal developer of
the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first omni-font optical character
recognition, the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the
first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of
recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first
commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition.
Among Kurzweil's many honors, he is the recipient of the $500,000
MIT-Lemelson Prize, the world's largest for innovation. In 1999, he
received the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in
technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. In 2002, he
was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, established by the
US Patent Office. He has received fifteen honorary Doctorates and honors
from three U.S. presidents. Kurzweil has written five books, four of which
have been national best sellers. The Age of Spiritual Machines has been
translated into 9 languages and was the #1 best selling book on Amazon in
science. His latest book, The Singularity is Near, was a New York Times
best seller, and has been the #1 book on Amazon in both science and
philosophy.
The keynote, "The Next 20 Years of Gaming," is scheduled for February
21, 2008, from 10:30am to 11:30am PST in the Esplanade Room of the Moscone
Center's South Hall. Ray Kurzweil will join the distinguished list of
luminary GDC keynotes which includes Shigeru Miyamoto (GDC07), Phil
Harrison (GDC06 and GDC07), Satoru Iwata (GDC06), Ronald D. Moore (GDC06),
and Will Wright (GDC06 and GDC05).
GDC 2008 will also feature sessions on breakthrough titles such as
Bioshock, Crysis, Halo 3, Rock Band, Singstar and more, from leading
members of the game development community including creator of the Magnavox
Odyssey game system Ralph Baer, Microsoft/Bungie engineering lead Chris
Butcher, managing director of Crytek GmbH Cervat Yerli, president and
creative director of 2K Boston/Irrational Ken Levine, Richard Bates of
Entropia Universe Business Development, Senior Producer at LucasArts
Entertainment Haden Blackman, and many others.
For further information and to register for GDC, please visit
http://www.gdconf.com.
About the Game Developers Conference (http://www.gdconf.com)
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world's largest
professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San
Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and
networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and
online games. The GDC attracts over 16,000 attendees, and is the primary
forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio
professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the
development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the
future of the industry. The GDC is produced by the CMP Game Group, a
division of CMP Technology.
About CMP (http://www.cmp.com)
CMP (http://www.cmp.com/) is a media and marketing solutions company
serving the technology industry. With the leading online, event and print
brands in all technology market categories, and with services and tools
that reach beyond traditional advertising, CMP shapes and influences the
technology industry worldwide. CMP publishes highly respected media brands
such as TechWeb, InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, CRN, EE Times and TechOnline;
produces major industry events such as Interop, Web 2.0 Expo, XChange, Game
Developers Conference and the Embedded Systems Conferences; and provides
business information and marketing services such as the International
Customer Management Institute, Semiconductor Insights and Second Life
consulting for technology marketers. CMP is a subsidiary of United Business
Media (http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/), a global provider of news
distribution and specialist information services with a market
capitalization of more than $3 billion. For more CMP news, go to
http://cmp.com/news.
SOURCE CMP
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Related links:
http://www.cmp.com
http://www.gdconf.com
CONTACT:
Sibel Sunar, sibel@fortyseven.com, or Brian
Rubin, brian@fortyseven.com, both of fortyseven communications,
+1-323-658-1200, for CMP; or Ben Veechai of CMP Game Group,
+1-415-947-6280, bveechai@cmp.com
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