Thoughts on Organizing Computer Files

Ever since Harlan Hugh began programming computers at age 6, he’s wondered why computers aren’t set up to work the way the human brain works. Last week, Hugh’s Santa Monica company released the Brain, a user interface that organizes computer files in clusters that mimic the human thought process.

More than three years in the making, the Brain groups files around “thoughts” and organizes those clusters of related items according to three kinds of relationships--”parents,” “children” and “jumps.” When a user clicks on one of the clusters, it becomes the central “thought,” and the other items reorganize around it according to the predetermined relationships. Then, when a user wants to open a file in one of the clusters, the Brain automatically launches the necessary application.

“This system really and truly integrates all of your information, whether it’s a Word document, a Photoshop document or a Web site,” said Donald Block, who founded Natrificial Software Technologies with Hugh and invested $2 million in the venture.

Chris Le Tocq, an industry analyst with Dataquest who has used the software, said the initial release of the Brain still has a few rough edges, but he called it “a very interesting technology.”

Natrificial is also working with some leading Internet sites to make them “Brain-enabled,” so that visitors with the Brain software can view them through the thought paradigm. The software is available for $49.95 at https://www.natrificial.com