Comments on: New Mobile Linux Site Launches

-- http://www.palminfocenter.com/comments/8415/#119655

more than adequately addresses Hawkins' new plaything.

After being laughed at by other neuroscience grad students for suggesting that it might be possible to create a computational model of the neocortex, George started hanging out at the institute. "I very much liked the ideas Jeff proposed," George says. Then he did something that surprised even Hawkins. "I took the way the brain works," he says casually, "and converted it to algorithms."

The algorithms were quick and dirty at first. Most of the neuroscientists at the institute criticized George's approach as too simplistic. But Hawkins saw a kindred spirit. "This is great," he enthused to the grumbling group. "Dileep is taking my ideas seriously!" George kept refining his math, and the software became better and better. Then he cooked up a visual-recognition problem he calls Pictures to test the system.

While any child can identify a drawing of a cat or dog the first time it's seen, computers find the same task nearly impossible. George made line drawings of simple objects such as a dog, a cat, a bee, and a helicopter. He loaded up his algorithm and trained the computer by animating the digital drawings. Once the computer was trained and could identify the objects, George started to show it variations of the drawings it had never seen.

Slowly it started to put the drawings in the right categories and even gave a probability of how sure it was of its answer. Most computers today would find such a simple image-recognition problem unsolvable. Harry Saal, a Numenta board member and a founder of Network General, which was bought by McAfee (Charts), recalls the first time he saw George's Pictures. "That this could be demoed on a stupid little laptop floored me," he says. "It was the first indication that what Jeff had was more than just a theory."

If he is so darn "brainy" then why is the Palm Platform in shambles?

PDA's Past and Present:
Palm - IIIxe, Vx, M500, M505, Tungsten T, TX
Handspring - Edge, Platinum
Sony - SJ22
Apple - MP2000, MP2100

I look forward to Hawkins' stuff. Maybe Jobs should have a sitdown with him and see what can be licensed to put into the World-Conquering iPhone. (God knows Treo is now dead dead dead!)

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/asus-j501-is-a-regular-cell-and-voip-phone-in-one-234307.php

A "dual mode" cellular + VOIP wi-fi handset like this would go a LONG way towards mitigating the Treo's, ahem, less than spectacular performance as a conventional cell voice handset.

Or, as I've said before, Palm could keep the Treo golden goose cellular only and morph the TX into a large-screened, PDA/PMP/VOIP via wi-fi device.

Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P

Oh puh-lease...

Word completion annoys the crap out of me. Would't mind seeing it in the OS, so long as you could turn it off. But in the meantime, there's a few different apps available that do the same thing. And that is why the Treo isn't dead: any software feature you may want to add to it, there's probably an app out there that does it. It's just too damn useful for me to ever use a "closed" phone again.

iPhone ain't gonna conquer anything, by the by. At least not this first model. Too expensive to be a true mass-market hit, likely useless as a text/email device and a closed OS.

Tim
I apologise for any and all emoticons that appear in my posts. You may shoot them on sight.
Treo 270 ---> Treo 650 ---> Crimson Treo 680

Wouldn't say it's his fault - a lot of other less talented people have stuck their fingers in his pie. Colligan seems to be pulling things back together, though. Albeit sloooooowly....

Fortune favors the prepared.

-- http://discussion.treocentral.com/showpost.php?p=462868&postcount=65

Giggle.