Staff working at Google who think that the new Director of Engineering looks slightly familiar may not be too far off the mark, after the internet search giant announced the hiring of Ray Kurzweil for the position.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the acclaimed futurist and author of The Singularity Is Near, has been brought in to the company to work on a number of engineering research projects related to machine learning and language processing. Kurzweil, who is known for his theories about the future of interaction between humans and technology, was due to take up his new position on December 17, following the official announcement by Google at the end of last week. […]