Kurzweil Educational Systems

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The logo of Kurzweil Educational Systems

Kurzweil Educational Systems, Inc. is an American based company that specialises in providing reading and writing software to assist people who are blind or partially sighted, or who have learning disabilities, such as dyslexia and Attention Deficit Disorder. Founded in 1996, the company has pioneered the development of assistive technology, and achieved worldwide recognition for its work. Kurzweil Educational Systems has also won several excellence awards within its industry. Its headquarters are based in Bedford, Massachusetts.

The company supplies two principal products to its customers - Kurzweil 1000 and Kurzweil 3000. Kurzweil 1000 is a package which enables a visually impaired user to gain access to both electronic and printed material by speaking aloud text which has been scanned or copied; while Kurzweil 3000 is a reading, writing and learning medium aimed mainly at students who are struggling to keep up in the academic environment.

[edit] Trivia

Though the company was formed in the mid 1990s, text to speech software is actually something that dates back to the 1970s, when Dr Raymond Kurzweil developed his first Kurzweil Reading Machine, a device which could scan and speak text.
In 2005, Kurzweil Educational Systems was acquired by Cambiun Learning. Cambiun ownes a number of other similarly related companies.