Numenta: 'puters implants in your head dude!

When I started this blog site I placed a couple of cool links to other worthwhile sites. In case you ahve not visited the Numenta site you really should check it out. These are soem of the folks who wrote the Palm OS then owned Handspring and have now set up a "think tank" in the most literal sense.

Numenta Formed by Jeff Hawkins to Apply Neuroscience Research to Computing Problems

New Company Based on Hawkins' Research on Brain Theory


MENLO PARK, CA - March 24, 2005 - Computer industry veterans Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky (founders of Palm Computing and Handspring) today announced they are forming a new company named Numenta. Numenta (which stems from "mentis," the Latin word for "mind") will develop technology derived from Hawkins' research in neuroscience and brain theory. Numenta's technology is a new type of memory architecture modeled after the mammalian cortex that can solve problems in pattern recognition and machine learning.

Hawkins recently published a book on the subject of biological and machine intelligence titled On Intelligence. The book, co-written with science journalist Sandra Blakeslee, has attracted interest in the scientific and computing communities. Numenta is being formed to turn the biological theory described in the book into a useful technology.

"My goal at Numenta is to put my brain theory into practice," said Hawkins. "We have the opportunity to build intelligent memory systems to solve difficult problems in computer science and artificial intelligence for which no other known solutions exist, such as general machine vision, language understanding, and robotics."

Dubinsky, who was formerly co-founder and CEO of Handspring, as well as CEO of Palm Computing, will be Numenta's CEO. "I'm delighted to be working with Jeff again to formulate a business out of his theories," said Dubinsky. "The Numenta vision is large in scope and long term. Although it may take several years before we have commercial products, the possibilities for this technology are exciting and broad."

In addition to Dubinsky, Hawkins is joined by a third founder in Numenta, Dileep George. A PhD candidate at Stanford University, George has worked with Hawkins since 2003 on creating a mathematical extension and software implementation of Hawkins' theory. George now serves as the principal engineer at Numenta.

Hawkins' active role as CTO for palmOne is unchanged. "I remain committed to the ongoing success of palmOne and appreciate palmOne's flexibility in allowing me to simultaneously pursue my other passion."

For more information about Numenta and to sign up for email notification of Numenta news, go to www.numenta.com. For more information on the book, On Intelligence, go to www.onintelligenc