full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ron McCallum: How technology allowed me to read

Unscramble the Blue Letters


In 1974, the graet Ray Kurzweil, the American inventor, worked on bldiniug a machine that would scan books and read them out in synthetic secpeh. Optical ctecrhaar recognition units then only operated usually on one font, but by using charge-coupled device flatbed scanners and speech seinezsrhyts, he developed a machine that could read any font. And his machine, which was as big as a washing machine, was launched on the 13th of January, 1976. I saw my first commercially available kirezuwl in March 1989, and it blew me away, and in September 1989, the month that my associate professorship at Monash University was announced, the law school got one, and I could use it. For the first time, I could read what I wanted to read by pttunig a book on the scanner. I didn't have to be nice to people!

Open Cloze


In 1974, the _____ Ray Kurzweil, the American inventor, worked on ________ a machine that would scan books and read them out in synthetic ______. Optical _________ recognition units then only operated usually on one font, but by using charge-coupled device flatbed scanners and speech ____________, he developed a machine that could read any font. And his machine, which was as big as a washing machine, was launched on the 13th of January, 1976. I saw my first commercially available ________ in March 1989, and it blew me away, and in September 1989, the month that my associate professorship at Monash University was announced, the law school got one, and I could use it. For the first time, I could read what I wanted to read by _______ a book on the scanner. I didn't have to be nice to people!

Solution


  1. speech
  2. character
  3. synthesizers
  4. building
  5. kurzweil
  6. putting
  7. great

Original Text


In 1974, the great Ray Kurzweil, the American inventor, worked on building a machine that would scan books and read them out in synthetic speech. Optical character recognition units then only operated usually on one font, but by using charge-coupled device flatbed scanners and speech synthesizers, he developed a machine that could read any font. And his machine, which was as big as a washing machine, was launched on the 13th of January, 1976. I saw my first commercially available Kurzweil in March 1989, and it blew me away, and in September 1989, the month that my associate professorship at Monash University was announced, the law school got one, and I could use it. For the first time, I could read what I wanted to read by putting a book on the scanner. I didn't have to be nice to people!

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
blind people 6
technological revolution 2
tape recorders 2
talking books 2
accessible books 2
harry potter 2


Important Words


  1. american
  2. announced
  3. associate
  4. big
  5. blew
  6. book
  7. books
  8. building
  9. character
  10. commercially
  11. developed
  12. device
  13. flatbed
  14. font
  15. great
  16. inventor
  17. january
  18. kurzweil
  19. launched
  20. law
  21. machine
  22. march
  23. monash
  24. month
  25. nice
  26. operated
  27. optical
  28. professorship
  29. putting
  30. ray
  31. read
  32. recognition
  33. scan
  34. scanner
  35. scanners
  36. school
  37. september
  38. speech
  39. synthesizers
  40. synthetic
  41. time
  42. units
  43. university
  44. wanted
  45. washing
  46. worked