Numenta formed by Jeff Hawkins to apply neuroscience research to computing problems

MARCH 29--Computer-industry veterans Jeff Hawkins and Donna Dubinsky (founders of Palm Computing and Handspring) have 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 titledOn Intelligence. The book, cowritten 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 cofounder 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 Ph.D. 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.

For more information about Numenta and to sign up for e-mail notification of Numenta news, go towww.numenta.com.