|
一个大学生的创业经历-大学生创业故事 We announced the KRM in January of 1976, and it seemed to strike a chord. All the evening network news programs carried the story, and Walter Cronkite used the machine to read aloud his signature sign-off, “and that’s the way it was, January 13, 1976.” 我们于1976年1月宣布库兹威尔阅读机的诞生，这就像一石激起千层浪。所有晚间电视新闻节目都进行了报道，沃尔特·克朗凯特还用阅读机大声读出了他的节目结束语，“以上就是今天的新闻。1976年1月13日。” Shortly after the announcement, I was invited on the Today show, which was a little nerve-racking since we only had one working reading machine. Sure enough, the machine stopped working a couple of hours before I was scheduled to go on live national television. Our chief engineer frantically took the machine apart, scattering pieces of electronics and wires across the floor of the set. Frank Field, who was going to interview me, walked by and asked if everything was okay. “Sure, Frank,” I replied. “We’re just making a few last-minute adjustments.” 就在宣布这项发明之后不久，我应邀去参加电视节目《今天》。这有点儿伤脑筋，因为我们只有一台能用的阅读机。果然，就在离全国电视直播还有一两个钟头的时候，那台阅读机坏了。我们的首席工程师发疯似地拆开机器，在布景台上把电子元器件和电线摆了一地。打算采访我的弗兰克·菲尔德从旁经过，问是不是出了什么问题。我回答说，“放心吧，弗兰克。我们只是在最后的调整。” Our chief engineer put the reading machine back together, and still it didn’t work. Finally, he used a time-honored method of repairing delicate electronic equipment and slammed the reading machine against a table. From that moment, it worked just fine. Its live television debut then proceeded without a hitch. 首席工程师把阅读机重新组装好，但它还是不能工作。最后，他采用了修理精密电子设备的老方法：把阅读机用力在桌子上掼了两下。阅读机竟然能用了。现场直播中，阅读机表现得非常出色，没有出一点儿故障。 Stevie Wonder heard about our appearance on the Today show, and decided to check out the story himself. Our receptionist was skeptical that the person on the other end of the line was really the legendary singer, but she put the call through to me, anyway. I invited him over, and he tried out the machine. He beseeched us to provide him with his own reading machine, so we turned the factory upside down to hurriedly finish up our first production unit (we didn’t want to give him the prototype we used on the Toddy show, as it still had a few battle scars). We showed Stevie how to use it, and off he went in a taxi with his new reading machine by his side. 史蒂夫·旺德听说我们上了《今天》节目，决定亲自核对有关我们的这项报道。我们的话务员怀疑打电话的人是否真是那位大名鼎鼎的歌手，但她还是把电话转给了我。我把史蒂夫请过来。他试用之后请我们给他提供一台。于是，我们让工厂赶紧组装出第一台成品（我们不想把做节目时用的样机给他，因为上面还有一些碰撞痕迹）。我们演示了使用方法，接着他就带着阅读机坐出租车走了。 We subsequently applied the scanning and omni-font OCR to commercial uses such as entering data into databases and into the emerging word-processing computers. New information services, such as Lexus (an online legal research service) and Nexus (a new service), were built using the Kurzweil Data Entry Machine to scan and recognize written documents. 此后，我们把扫描仪和万能字体OCR投入了商业应用，例如数据库的数据输入、崭露头角的文字处理计算机上的文字录入。Lexus（一家在线法律研究机构）和Nexus（一家新闻机构）等一些新的信息服务机构纷纷成立，都是用库兹威尔数据输入机来扫描和识别手写文件。 In 1978, after years of scrambling to raise funds for our venture, we were fortunate in attracting interest and investment from a big company: Xerox. Most Xerox products transferred electronic information onto paper. They saw the Kurzweil scanning and OCR technology as providing a bridge back from the world of paper to the electronic world, so in 1980 they bought the company. You can still buy the OCR we originally developed, suitably updated -- it’s now called Xerox TextBridge, and continues as a market leader. 经过几年努力，我们为自己的事业筹集了一些资金。1978年我们有幸得到一家大公司的青睐，并得到它的投资。它就是施乐公司；该公司大多数产品都是用于把电子化信息传送到纸上。施乐公司把我们的扫描仪和OCR技术视为从纸上世界返回电子世界的桥梁，于是在1980年买下我们的公司。你现在还能买到我们初期开发的OCR程序，但它已适当更新；它现叫施乐文本转换器，仍然处于市场领先地位。
|
