Numenta
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IBM starts testing AI software that mimics the human brain
We haven't talked about Numenta since an HP exec left to join the company in 2011, because, well, it's been keeping a pretty low-profile existence. Now, a big name tech corp is reigniting interest in the company and its artificial intelligence software. According to MIT's Technology Review, IBM has recently started testing Numenta's algorithms for practical tasks, such as analyzing satellite imagery of crops and spotting early signs of malfunctioning field machinery. Numenta's technology caught IBM's eye, because it works more similarly to the human brain than other AI software. The 100-person IBM team that's testing the algorithms is led by veteran researcher Winfried Wilcke, who had great things to say about the technology during a conference talk back in February.
webOS VP flies the coop, joins Numenta as marketing guru for imminent product launch
You probably don't know who Joe Hayashi is -- well, unless you skimmed his bio immediately above -- but he just departed one company that you might care about, and went to another one. Hayashi was VP of webOS product development at Palm / HP, and now he's become the VP of marketing at Numenta, also known as the place where Palm's founder (and two former CEOs) decided to stay after the Folio tanked. Numenta's kept fairly quiet during its six years of operation, except to describe a concept called "hierarchical temporary memory" which could lead to a form of artificial intelligence based on human learning schemes, but we imagine if it needs a marketing guy, the company's about ready to actually create something. For its part, Numenta agrees -- it's publicly stated that we'll see the technology in some sort of product later this year.
