An optical-character-recognition machine for the blind that's capable of reading most types of printed text aloud, the CCD flatbed scanner, speech-recognition software, the first synthesizer that created sounds virtually indistinguishable from those produced by their acoustic counterparts, and a whole bunch of other nifty things we can barely comprehend came from Ray's brain.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Now they have something that works like a flatbed document scanner, with a scanning head containing either six or 12 light-emitting diodes, each emitting light of a specific wavelength between 350 nanometres (ultraviolet) and 800 nanometres (infra-red).

ECONOMIST: Monitor