Intel eyes future with computers that learn

Intel Corp is launching research in Israel into technology that mimics the human brain and develops devices that "learn" about their user.

"Machine learning is such a huge opportunity," Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer, told reporters in Tel Aviv.

"Despite their name, smartphones are rather dumb devices. My smartphone doesn't know anything more about me than when I got it," he added.

"All of these devices will come to know us as individuals, will very much tailor themselves to us."

The research, to be carried out by the Intel Collaborative Research Institute for Computational Intelligence along with specialists from the Technion in Haifa and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is aimed at enabling new applications, such as small, wearable computers that can enhance daily life.

For example if a user leaves his car keys in the house, the device will in the first week remember where he left them and by the second week will remind the user to pick up his keys before leaving home, Rattner said.

Such devices, which continually record what the user is doing, will be available by 2014 or 2015, he said.

"Within five years all of the human senses will be in computers and in 10 years we will have more transistors in one chip than neurons in the human brain," said Moody Eden, president of Intel Israel.

Rattner said Intel is already implementing the new technology in digital signs it created for Adidas. The signs determine whether the shopper is male or female, adult or child and shows shoes suitable to that person.

He said this was part of Intel's expansion beyond its traditional semiconductor business.