Jeff Hawkins
Encyclopedia
Palm (PDA)
Palm handhelds were Personal Digital Assistants which ran the Palm OS. Palm devices have evolved from handhelds to smartphones which run Palm OS, WebOS, and Windows Mobile...
) and Handspring
Handspring (company)
Handspring was a maker of Palm OS-based Visor- and Treo-branded personal digital assistants. It was run by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, the original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing, after they became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking...
(where he invented the Treo). He has since turned to work on neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
full-time, founded the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (formerly the Redwood Neuroscience Institute) in 2002, and published On Intelligence
On Intelligence
On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by Palm Pilot-inventor Jeff Hawkins with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee. The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain and describes...
describing his memory-prediction framework
Memory-prediction framework
The memory-prediction framework is a theory of brain function that was created by Jeff Hawkins and described in his 2004 book On Intelligence...
theory of the brain. In 2003 he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering
National Academy of Engineering
The National Academy of Engineering is a government-created non-profit institution in the United States, that was founded in 1964 under the same congressional act that led to the founding of the National Academy of Sciences...
"for the creation of the hand-held computing paradigm and the creation of the first commercially successful example of a hand-held computing device."
Hawkins also serves on the Advisory Board of the Secular Coalition for America
Secular Coalition for America
The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C., representing atheists, humanists, freethinkers, agnostics, and other non-theistic people with a naturalistic worldview in American politics. Sean Faircloth, a five-term Maine state legislator, served as Executive...
and offers advice to the coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.
Early life and career
Hawkins grew up with an inventive family on the north shore of Long IslandLong Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. They developed a floating air cushion platform that was used for waterfront concerts. He attended Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, where he received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1979. He went to work for Intel, and then moved to GRiD Systems in 1982 where he developed Rapid Application Development
Rapid application development
Rapid application development is a software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping. The "planning" of software developed using RAD is interleaved with writing the software itself...
(RAD) software. Hawkins' interest in pattern recognition
Pattern recognition
In machine learning, pattern recognition is the assignment of some sort of output value to a given input value , according to some specific algorithm. An example of pattern recognition is classification, which attempts to assign each input value to one of a given set of classes...
for speech and text input to computers led him to enroll in the biophysics program at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
in 1986. While there he patented a "pattern classifier" for hand written text, but his PhD proposal was rejected, apparently because none of the professors there were working in that field. The setback led him back to GRiD, where, as vice president of research, he developed their pen-based computing initiative that in 1989 spawned the GRiDPad
GRiDPad
The GRiDPAD was a touchscreen computer manufactured by GRiD Systems Corporation in 1989. It was one of the first of its kind, and gave Jeff Hawkins the idea for the Palm Pilot....
, one of the first tablet computer
Tablet computer
A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
s.
Hawkins desired to move on with the development of a smaller, hand-held
device, but executives at GRiD were reluctant to take the risk. Tandy Corporation
Tandy Corporation
Tandy Corporation was a family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas. Tandy was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store, and acquired RadioShack in 1963. The Tandy name was dropped in May 2000, when RadioShack Corporation was made the official name.-History:Tandy began in 1919...
had acquired GRiD in 1988, and they were willing to support Hawkins in a new venture company. Palm Computing was founded in January, 1992. Their first product was the Zoomer, a collaboration with Palm applications, GeoWorks OS
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
, Casio
Casio
is a multinational electronic devices manufacturing company founded in 1946, with its headquarters in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Casio is best known for its electronic products, such as calculators, audio equipment, PDAs, cameras, musical instruments, and watches...
hardware, and Tandy marketing. The Apple Newton
Apple Newton
The MessagePad was the first series of personal digital assistant devices developed by Apple for the Newton platform in 1993. Some electronic engineering and the manufacture of Apple's MessagePad devices was done in Japan by the Sharp Corporation...
came out about the same time, late 1993, but both products failed, partly due to poor character recognition software. Hawkins responded with Graffiti
Graffiti (Palm OS)
Graffiti is an essentially single-stroke shorthand handwriting recognition system used in PDAs based on the Palm OS. Graffiti was originally written by Palm, Inc...
, a simpler and more effective recognition product that ran on both the Zoomer and the Newton. They also developed HotSync synchronization software for Hewlett Packard devices.
Hawkins searched for partners to build a simple new handheld, but was stymied until modem
Modem
A modem is a device that modulates an analog carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a carrier signal to decode the transmitted information. The goal is to produce a signal that can be transmitted easily and decoded to reproduce the original digital data...
manufacturer U.S. Robotics
U.S. Robotics
USRobotics Corporation is a company that makes computer modems and related products. It sold high-speed modems in the 1980s, and had a reputation for high quality and compatibility. With the reduced usage of voiceband modems in North America in the early 21st century, USR is now one of the few...
stepped in with the financial backing and manufacturing expertise to bring the Palm Pilot to market in early 1996. By the fall of 1998, US Robotics' new owner, 3Com
3Com
3Com was a pioneering digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network infrastructure products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney, Bruce Borden, and Greg Shaw...
, was hindering his plans, and Hawkins left the company along with Palm co-founders Donna Dubinsky
Donna Dubinsky
Donna Dubinsky is a businesswoman who played an integral role in the development of personal digital assistants serving as CEO of Palm, Inc. and co-founding Handspring with Jeff Hawkins in 1995...
and Ed Colligan to start Handspring
Handspring (company)
Handspring was a maker of Palm OS-based Visor- and Treo-branded personal digital assistants. It was run by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, the original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing, after they became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking...
, which debuted the Handspring Visor in September 1999. 3Com ended up spinning off Palm in March, 2000, which then merged with Handspring in August, 2003.
Numenta
In March 2005, Jeff Hawkins, together with Donna DubinskyDonna Dubinsky
Donna Dubinsky is a businesswoman who played an integral role in the development of personal digital assistants serving as CEO of Palm, Inc. and co-founding Handspring with Jeff Hawkins in 1995...
(Palm's original CEO) and Dileep George, founded Numenta, Inc.
Numenta
Numenta is a company founded March 24, 2005, by Palm founder Jeff Hawkins with his longtime business partner Donna Dubinsky and Stanford graduate student Dileep George. It is headquartered in Redwood City, California.-Origin:...
The company's goal is to simultaneously create a theory of how the brain works, and a computer algorithm to implement this theory.
They have been using biological information about the structure of the neocortex to guide the development of their theory on how the brain works. So far, they have come up with two major algorithmic frameworks: Hierarchical Temporal Memory
Hierarchical Temporal Memory
Hierarchical temporal memory is a machine learning model developed by Jeff Hawkins and Dileep George of Numenta, Inc. that models some of the structural and algorithmic properties of the neocortex. HTM is a biomimetic model based on the memory-prediction theory of brain function described by Jeff...
and Fixed-sparsity Distributed Representations. The frameworks can find patterns in noisy data, model the latent causes, and make predictions about what patterns will come next.
The company is headquartered in Redwood City, California
Redwood City, California
Redwood City is a California charter city located on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California, approximately 27 miles south of San Francisco, and 24 miles north of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans from its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people, to its tradition as a port for...
.
Neuroscience
After graduating from Cornell in June 1979, he read a special issue of Scientific AmericanScientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
on the brain. In it Francis Crick
Francis Crick
Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, and most noted for being one of two co-discoverers of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953, together with James D. Watson...
lamented the lack of a grand theory explaining how the brain functions. Initially, he attempted to start a new department on the subject at his employer Intel, but was refused. He also unsuccessfully attempted to join the MIT AI Lab. He eventually decided he would try to find success in the computer industry and then try to use it to support his serious work on brains, as described in his book On Intelligence
On Intelligence
On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by Palm Pilot-inventor Jeff Hawkins with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee. The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain and describes...
.
In 2002, after two decades of finding little interest from neuroscience institutions, Hawkins founded the Redwood Neuroscience Institute in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
, California. As a result of the formation of Hawkins' new company, Numenta
Numenta
Numenta is a company founded March 24, 2005, by Palm founder Jeff Hawkins with his longtime business partner Donna Dubinsky and Stanford graduate student Dileep George. It is headquartered in Redwood City, California.-Origin:...
, the Institute was moved to the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
on 1 July 2005, renamed the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, and is now administered through the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute
The Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley was founded in 1999 with assistance from a US$10 million bequeathal left by eight-time Wimbledon champion Helen Wills Moody, an alumna of the University of California - Berkeley.-History:After the death of Helen Wills...
.
In 2004, Hawkins published On Intelligence
On Intelligence
On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by Palm Pilot-inventor Jeff Hawkins with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee. The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain and describes...
(with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee), laying out his "memory-prediction framework
Memory-prediction framework
The memory-prediction framework is a theory of brain function that was created by Jeff Hawkins and described in his 2004 book On Intelligence...
" of how the brain works. His unified theory of the brain argues that the key to the brain and intelligence is the ability to make predictions about the world by seeing patterns. (cf. Franz Brentano
Franz Brentano
Franz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
's theory of intentionality, published in 1874) He argues that attempts to create an artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
by simply programming a computer to do what a brain does are flawed and that to actually make an intelligent computer, we simply need to teach it to find and use patterns, not to attempt any specific tasks. Through this method, he thinks we can build intelligent machines, helping us do all sorts of useful tasks that current computers cannot achieve. He further argues that this memory-prediction system as implemented by the brain's cortex
Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a sheet of neural tissue that is outermost to the cerebrum of the mammalian brain. It plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It is constituted of up to six horizontal layers, each of which has a different...
is the basis of human intelligence.
Books
- Hawkins, Jeff w/ Sandra Blakeslee (2005). On IntelligenceOn IntelligenceOn Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines is a book by Palm Pilot-inventor Jeff Hawkins with New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee. The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain and describes...
, Times Books, Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0-8050-7456-2
External links
- TED Talks: Jeff Hawkins on how brain science will change computing - Jeff Hawkins speaks about his theories at TEDTED (conference)TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....
in 2003 - Jeff Hawkins hacks the Human Brain article from Business 2.0Business 2.0Business 2.0 was a monthly magazine publication founded by magazine entrepreneur Chris Anderson, Mark Gross, and journalist James Daly in order to chronicle the rise of the "New Economy"...
- On Intelligence
- Crazy about Brains Cornell Engineering Magazine, Spring 2005
- Jeff Hawkins: The man who almost single-handedly revived the handheld computer industry, Pen Computing
- Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot, PalmPower Magazine
- Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot (Part 2), PalmPower Magazine
- Video lecture: Can a New Theory of the Neocortex Lead to Truly Intelligent Machines?
- Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience
- Portability, People and Passion, Jeff Hawkins speaks at Stanford Podcast
- RSA 2008 Keynote Speaker on Hierarchical Temporal MemoryHierarchical Temporal MemoryHierarchical temporal memory is a machine learning model developed by Jeff Hawkins and Dileep George of Numenta, Inc. that models some of the structural and algorithmic properties of the neocortex. HTM is a biomimetic model based on the memory-prediction theory of brain function described by Jeff...
- 2008 Interview on the Brain Science Podcast
- https://365.rsaconference.com/docs/DOC-1783#2008 Keynote Speech at the RSA ConferenceRSA ConferenceThe RSA Conference is a cryptography and information security-related conference held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area.The RSA Conference started in 1991 as a forum for cryptographers to gather and share the latest knowledge and advancements in the area of Internet security...
called Hierarchical 'Memory: Computing Beyond Turing']