One of the common questions is about HTM “learning something.” That may bring in some pre-conceived notions about what it might mean to learn something.
On one level, the HTM system either triggers a response of a predictive cell to indicate that the current perception or sequence has been seen before, or a burst to indicate that this is a novel perception. This bursting is a signal of novelty. It is local to the scope of that pool of perception and depending on the configuration of the HTM system, my be some topological portion of the map or the entire map as a whole.
This is the heart of the anomaly detection that is commonly touted as the strength of the HTM system.
As far as a pattern that can be passed to some outside viewer that transforms a perception to a unique output pattern that signals the perception of a learned pattern - not so much.
At least as currently formulated.
I have been proposing a hex-grid signaling method to replace the spatial pooling portion of the HTM system but that is certainly not widely adopted by the HTM community. One of the strengths of the Hex-Grid proposal is a stable grid pattern that does communicate a fixed pattern to signal recognition. This is an extension to the standard HTM model and not in competition. Several members have mentioned that they were going to try this extension - I have not heard on anyone reporting any positive results at this time.