This is nothing new. As in decades-old. Back when I was at DEC in the 1980s we had auto-threading compilers that worked very well on standard application code. Today, Intel has been doing auto-threading in its C++ and Fortran compilers for more than a decade and it is very effective for a large class of applications. Intel's compiler also has features that help you tweak the code for better auto-parallelism, notably the Guided Auto Parallel feature introduced in 2010. Other compiler vendors also have auto-parallelizing compilers.

I've been in the industry for decades, and every couple of years someone comes out with yet another programming language or technique that is supposed to revolutionize application parallelization. This is just another one, and many years behind the rest of the industry from what I can tell.

Stock buybacks indeed make the shares more valuable. Paying dividends can entice some institutional investors to buy shares which they would not otherwise do. As long as Apple keeps sufficient cash on hand, this is a general win.

The fine article misrepresents the facts. The EU case was decided by a commission without legal process. As for the US cases, you can read the FTC decision at http://www.ftc.gov/os/adjpro/d9341/101102inteldo.pdf . Quoting:

The Respondent, its attorneys, and counsel for the Commission having thereafter
executed an agreement containing a consent Order, an admission by Respondent of all the
jurisdictional facts set forth in the complaint, a statement that the signing of said agreement is for
settlement purposes only and does not constitute an admission by Respondent that the law has
been violated as alleged in such complaint, or that the facts as alleged in such complaint, other
than jurisdictional facts, are true and waivers and other provisions as required by the
Commission's Rules.

The NYAG settlement can be read at http://download.intel.com/pressroom/legal/nyag/NYAG-Intel_Final_Signed_Settlement_Agreement.pdf As stated there, the settlement was to avoid further litigation costs, once the NYAG found that its case had "been eviscerated".

In none of the cases to date has Intel admitted any culpability. In none of the cases has Intel been compelled to change its business practices or modify its products. What can one conclude from this?

And one big thing you leave out - Intel was never "found guilty" of the alleged practices. Lots of high-volume innuendo, but the manufacturers who supposedly got pressured denied that it happened at all. Yes, Intel settled because it was costing too much to have to deal with the discovery and allegations. Look at the recent settlement with the New York State AG (that lawsuit was politically motivated, in my opinion, in exchange for AMD saying it would build a fab in NY.)

I wish AMD well, but they "got lucky" once with Opteron and have not been able, so far, to repeat that success. If you want to blame Intel for being a fierce competitor, fine. But nobody has been able to prove they did anything "monopolistic", despite repeated attempts.

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.