There are those who eagerly await things such as Apple’s OS X or the latest build of Linux or whatever twist Microsoft has in store for its windowed world. And then there are others whose interest in operating systems runs on a longer clock.

Take Raymond Kurzweil. His life and work revolves around a singularly significant launch he expects within the next 20 to 30 years: something one might call Human Brain 2.0. Kurzweil, pioneer of artificial intelligence and pattern recognition technology, will be awarded MIT’s annual $500,000 Lemelson Prize for Invention and Innovation on Wednesday.

He, along with MIT-Lemelson Lifetime Achievement Award winner Raymond V. Damadian — inventor of the first MRI scanner — will be honored in a ceremony at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. […]