No. If your router supports the "external" authentication mode using only a PIN, it is vulnerable no matter which encryption type you use or how good your password is. I did not realize that there was such a mode - I too thought it required the pushbutton.

The easiest mitigation is to disable the WPS PIN on your router, re-enabling it when you want to add a device. Some routers may not have such an option, but at least mine does.

Scary.

Not true.

... and VMS .. and NonStop. Both systems with a lot of customers that find lots of value in those platforms and don't want to give them up.

The MiniPCIe standard includes SATA lines, as well as USB. So if you have an open full MiniPCIe connector, it probably has SATA capability. What you have to watch for, though, are slots that are physically MiniPCIe but which are wired for USB only (many notebooks and netbooks with WWAN connectors), or use non-standard pinouts for PATA (Dell Mini 9, for example.)

What is not clear, for the add-on user, is if the SATA lines are visible to the chipset. Usually mobile chipsets have 1 or maybe 2 ports for SATA.

In any event, these Intel cards are interesting for notebook and netbook manufacturers, less so for the end-user interested in a DIY upgrade.

I know that U3-enabled flash drives can run AV scans directly from the flash drive. I don't know if this requires that some part of the drive be writeable. U3 drives appear as a CD-ROM plus a separate flash drive. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3

System and component vendors don't make money on these "lighthouse account" supercomputer sales. My experience, having worked in the past for a vendor that did this a lot, is that they're a money-loser. The motivation is bragging rights, though that can be fleeting. I know of several times that my employer declined to bid on a supercomputer deal as it would just be too expensive.

Typically, these systems are actually sold by system vendors (Dell, HP, IBM) and not processor vendors, though the processor vendor will support the bid. That #1 "AMD" system is actually a Cray. Software also plays a large part in success or failure.

If you watch the video, you hear the inventor explain why a clutch is bad because it limits torque input and has wear. Yes, a clutch would certainly solve at least this problem, but the major benefit given for this design is to eliminate a clutch.

If the input is from an electric motor, no clutch is needed because electric motors have maximum torque at zero RPM and the "gear change" shaft can be allowed to come up to speed. Then again, most electric cars have very simple transmissions with a single gear, so again what's the point?

Perhaps what one can do is have a gear disengage and not re-engage until the transmission is in "neutral".

I think the weakness in this design is the need to rotate the "bottom" shaft at a speed equal to the input shaft for neutral. While indeed it doesn't need a lot of power, it's a lot of rotation where, in competing designs, a clutch disengages or the drive motor is idling. I could see a lot of things going wrong if the synchronization was imperfect, or if something went wrong.

How do you start this up from a dead stop? Somehow you have to exactly match the shaft rotation speeds to keep it in neutral before you start moving forward, otherwise there will be a lurch.

I look forward to seeing how this is developed further. It has a lot of potential.

Sorry, that is not even close. DEC sued Intel over infringements of the Alpha patents in Pentium processors. One of the results of the settlement was that Intel acquired DEC's Hudson, MA fab (which still operates today). In no way were DEC and Intel partners in Alpha, though ironically, Intel ended up making Alpha chips in the Hudson fab for several years under contract to DEC. What killed Alpha was years of neglect by Bob Palmer (DEC CEO) followed by Compaq's cluelessness. HP ended up with both Alpha and Itanium and bet the farm on the latter, but by that time it probably didn't matter.

Correction: Compaq bought DEC in mid-1999, HP bought Compaq in late 2001. Otherwise, you are mostly correct, though the majority of the Alpha design team ended up at Intel in 2001, when Intel acquired the Alpha architecture and compiler teams. Some Alpha designers did go to AMD and AMD licensed the Alpha EV6 bus for Opteron.

You did not use a ReplayTV before TiVo. TiVo was the first to ship product - Replay announced first.

The limit if you ordered XP was 16GB SSD, not 8GB.

I happened upon an exhibit of Tezuka's work at the Tokyo-Edo Museum when I was visiting Japan in April. It had a TV showing an extended clip from the movie. It didn't show anything that hinted at the overall plot, other than it evidently being, as noted in the interview, an "origin movie". All of the text on the displays was in Japanese, so if there was any explanation of the movie plot, it eluded me. As a big fan of the English version from the 1960s, I'm eager to see the movie, but my expectations are low.