As systems running its latest operating software go on sale Friday, Microsoft is playing an unprecedented role in dictating how computers should be displayed in big-box stores and how they should be pitched and explained to shoppers.

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Zynga filed the complaint in San Francisco’s Superior Court last week against Alan Patmore, who left Zynga this summer to join Kixeye. On Friday, the judge granted a temporary restraining order, barring Patmore from disclosing the data to anyone and from developing games based on Zynga’s trade secrets. In court today, Zynga asked the judge to address its other requests, including the right to begin discovery. Patmore did not appear in court today, but was represented by an attorney.

In a statement, Jay Monahan, Zynga’s Deputy General Counsel said: “Patmore does not dispute that he took 763 files from Zynga, which contained confidential game designs from teams around the company, and that he transferred those files to his computer at Kixeye where he’s currently the VP of Product.”

Patmore’s attorney did not return emails seeking comment.

Today, the judge granted Zynga’s request to conduct a three-hour deposition with Patmore. It also granted Zynga the right to work with forensic experts to search Patmore’s Kixeye computer and personal devices, including his iPhone, iPad and computer. The court also continued the restraining order from last week to prohibit Patmore from destroying or deleting any information he has already obtained. (See more information in the court document.)

Monahan added: “We are pleased with the judge’s decision and will continue to work to protect the ideas and assets of our employees.”

It will be the job of Zynga’s attorneys to find out how big a threat the situation is, given that Patmore did disclose that he took the information. If it was shared with anyone else at Kixeye, Zynga may have a much bigger mess on its hands and could end up also naming Kixeye as a defendant in the case.

In the original filing, Zynga claims Patmore took a wide variety of files that would help someone replicate its business, including revenue projections and monetization plans and documents for more than 10 unreleased games. Other documents detailed employee compensation and strategic road maps. Zynga also believes that Patmore tried to copy his entire email box, containing 14 months of confidential communications. “In short, Patmore copied virtually every email he received or sent while he was a GM at Zynga,” the complaint reads.

This weekend, a Kixeye spokesperson denied the company had anything to do with the lawsuit, but in a statement provided today by Kixeye’s CEO Will Harbin, the company did not reiterate that stance. Instead, Harbin spoke about Zynga’s well-documented problems:

“Zynga is burning to the ground and bleeding top talent and instead of trying to fix the problems — better work environment and better products — they are resorting to the only profit center that has ever really worked for them: their legal department. It is simply another case of Zynga vindictively persecuting a former employee as an individual. Given their financial situation it all feels pretty desperate. Our games have little in common with the ones that Zynga is known for. We make synchronous, combat strategy games. They make asynchronous cow clicking games. We have 2 of the top 7 highest grossing games on Facebook. Why on earth would we want to emulate a business that has seen a 75% decline in share price since their debut? According to their S1 their games average $.06 ARPDAU. Our games generate up to 20x that. You do the math.”

Here’s a copy of today’s orders:

Order Granting Ex Parte App.

In an interview, Rosenblum said that today was his first day at Drawbridge after working at Google for four and a half years.

In his new role as Drawbridge’s VP of Product, Rosenblum will be responsible for overseeing the company’s technology, which enables marketers to target users as they move from their computers to tablets and to mobile phones.

“Mobile is gaining share of minutes, so at some point it has to gain share of dollars,” Rosenblum said.

The company is trying to solve a problem, he said, that he was familiar with at Google. Google Offers sells discounts to consumers on everyday items, such as spa services or meals at restaurants, similar to Groupon. However, Google’s offering is slightly different because it is designed to help Google close the loop, so that it can show how online behavior — including Web searches — is dictating offline purchasing behavior. A key component of that is Google’s payment platform, called Google Wallet, which has struggled to gain consumer adoption.

While several members of the Google Wallet team have left, Google Offers has been more stable, even considering Rosenblum’s exit.

Rosenblum says his departure is not a reflection of the division’s success. “We’ve always positioned Google Offers as not competing directly with Groupon. We’ve built it as a closed loop ad platform,” he said. “I think we were wise to take a different tack and spend our engineering resources on that tack. Most small advertisers want to pay on CPA (cost per acquisition) basis, and I’m pretty proud that it’s as far along as it is.”

In May, Rosenblum announced that Google had started to integrate Groupon-like offers into Google Maps and that it was trying out other advertising models for coupons and rewards programs.

Now at Drawbridge, he said, he can help even small companies that don’t have Google-size resources increase revenue from mobile advertising by increasing their targeting abilities. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company is about two years old and has 21 employees. In May, Drawbridge’s founder and former Admob engineer Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan raised $6.5 million from Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer.

Here’s the full release:

Eric Rosenblum, Former Google Director of Product, Joins Cross-Screen Advertising Startup Drawbridge

Mobile payments expert to lead product innovation for Drawbridge’s cross-screen advertising platform

SAN MATEO, Calif. – September 10, 2012 – Drawbridge, the leader in cross-screen mobile advertising, today announces its new VP of Product: Eric Rosenblum, former Google Offers Director of Product. Rosenblum brings over 16 years of experience in product innovation, mobile payments and entrepreneurial ventures and will be responsible for driving forward product development plans for Drawbridge’s cross-screen mobile ad platform.

Rosenblum spent over four years at Google as Director of Strategy and Operations and Director of Product. Prior to joining Google, Rosenblum was founder and CEO of Smartpay, a leading mobile payment company in China. He also served as GM of Greater China and Global Strategy GM for RealNetworks. Rosenblum started his career with the Boston Consulting Group in Hong Kong and Shanghai after receiving an MBA from MIT Sloan.

“Drawbridge’s opportunity is immense,” says Rosenblum. “10% of media time is now consumed on mobile, but mobile only attracts 1% of the ad spend. The team at Drawbridge has made tremendous progress developing the tools to close this gap and building the technology foundations to finally make targeting and attribution work across all mobile screens and devices. I am beyond excited to be joining this outstanding team for the challenge.”

Drawbridge has developed technology that is able to leverage targeting data across screens and across devices. Through Drawbridge’s sophisticated probabilistic and statistical inference models, brands get a unified view of their customers regardless of channel, screen, or device. Since launching in May, Drawbridge has onboarded major advertisers focused on driving cross-screen performance in the retail, travel, and entertainment verticals. Drawbridge has made its innovative platform publicly available to advertisers and publisher partners, who can sign up at www.drawbrid.ge.

Kamakshi Sivaramakrishnan, Drawbridge founder and former AdMob and Google scientist, leads the company with funding from premier venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sequoia Capital.

To learn more about Drawbridge or sign up for their service, visit: www.drawbrid.ge

About Drawbridge
Drawbridge developed the world’s first cross-screen ad technology, enabling marketers to reach their target audience across any screen and any device – smartphone, tablet or personal computer. Unlike web cookies or fingerprint-based solutions, Drawbridge leverages anonymous, non-personally identifiable information to serve ads to hundreds of millions of unique users around the world – regardless of what kind of device they happen to be using. Drawbridge is located in Silicon Valley and is backed by Sequoia Capital and Kleiner, Perkins Caulfield and Byers.

Today, Samsung introduced its Samsung Series 5 and Series 7 all-in-one PCs running Windows 8.

Designed for use in the home, the Series 7 line is definitely on the higher-end of the spectrum, and includes a 27-inch model for $1,699 and a 23.6-inch model for $1,099. Both feature 1,920 x 1,080-pixel multi-touchscreens, so you can take better advantage of Windows 8’s touch-friendly user interface.

As with smartphones and tablets, you can now zoom in on photos and Web sites using the pinch-to-zoom gesture, and scroll through pages by swiping the screen.

In addition, Samsung has added five hand-gesture-recognition features that enable you to perform functions without even touching the display. For example, you can adjust the volume on a movie by rotating your palm clockwise or counterclockwise, or turn the page of an e-book by swiping left or right. The hand gestures work as long as you’re within three feet of the computer.

Both computers offer a one-terabyte hard disk drive and an optical drive for DVDs. The 27-inch all-in-one is equipped with a third-generation Intel Core i7 processor and eight gigabytes of memory, while the 23.6-inch model features an Intel Core i5 processor and 6GB of memory.

The Series 7 all-in-one PCs come with a wireless keyboard, mouse and remote control, and are better suited for the living room or home office.

Meanwhile, Samsung envisions the Series 5 all-in-one in the kitchen. It has a smaller, 21.5-inch touchscreen that offers the same gesture support as the Series 7, but its base has a more open design, so you can slide the keyboard and mouse underneath the display when not in use, to conserve space.

The Series 5 costs $749 and comes with a third-generation Intel Core i3 processor, a 500GB hard drive, an optical drive and 4GB of memory.

All three models are expected to launch alongside Microsoft’s latest operating system on Oct. 26.

The factory, which assembles desktop computers and servers, resembles thousands of others across China. Robotic arms are in constant motion, moving parts and pieces around. Rows of workers clad in blue pop parts into place as computers make their way down the line. The factory can churn out about 25,000 machines in a day.

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The rise of the infographic as a genre is a little depressing. Back when desktop publishing started, people were worried that there would be no more room for designers, that computers would do all the work for you. But this clearly didn’t turn out to be the case … infographics have become the mother’s day cards — the company newsletters — of data visualization.

– Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen Design, in Icon Magazine 109

Seagate, which last month said it would acquire the privately held retail hard drive maker LaCie, also said its gross margins on a non-GAAP basis will be lower than expected, by nearly a full percentage point. Its shares fell by 64 cents, or more than 2.5 percent, in after-hours trading to $24.44, after closing at $25.08 during the regular session. The shares have increased by more than 55 percent this year.

Seagate had been positioned to make out like crazy when the flooding in Thailand last year disrupted the hard drive industry’s supply chain; its CEO played up the crisis for all it was worth. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but it was a disruption, and Seagate benefited from less exposure to the affected regions than Western Digital, its primary competitor. Most of the rise in its share price over the last several months can be attributed to that.

The industry didn’t exactly face doomsday, and so Seagate didn’t expand its share of the market quite as fast as it had expected.

The company has created software, and left others to make the chips and hardware it ran on.

Later on Monday, the company will make its biggest-ever break from that tradition. As we’ve been reporting since last week, Microsoft is set to announce its own brand of tablets as part of an effort to reinsert itself into the market.

Now, it’s not like Microsoft is entirely new to hardware. The company has been making things like mice and keyboards forever. Its most successful hardware product, the Xbox 360, is a leader in computer gaming.

But Microsoft’s hardware efforts beyond that have been more misses than hits.

Some would point to the Kin as the biggest flop — it lasted just two months on the market. But even more troubling, in some respects, was the Zune music player. While the Zune achieved some level of sales in the market, most of that came at the expense of Microsoft’s former hardware partners, rather than Apple, the company it had hoped to catch.

And although they are all taking a wait-and-see attitude publicly, the PC makers have been counting on Windows 8 to make their own reentry into the tablet market. That they will now have Apple and Microsoft to compete against can hardly be good news.

While it remains to be seen how this product compares to the competition, Microsoft finds itself in a position similar to when it introduced the Zune. At that point, the company had been trying to compete against the iPod, with a series of hardware partners using its software.

This time around, the stakes are much higher. We’re no longer talking about a peripheral, but rather the future of computing and the core of Microsoft’s business.

It might be easy to dismiss Microsoft, given its past failures and its lack of “cool” points. But Microsoft brings a number of assets to this fight.

Assuming this tablet capitalizes on everything Microsoft has access to, Redmond could have a contender. Obviously, Microsoft could bring both Windows and Office to the device. But, the company also has its Xbox gaming abilities, plenty of licensing deals with Hollywood and the music labels, as well as the Barnes & Noble partnership it stuck when settling a legal battle earlier this year.

Of course, it remains to be seen just how much Microsoft has put together for this device, not to mention how much it will cost and when folks can get their hands on it.

Most of those details should come later today, at a still undisclosed location in Los Angeles, with an event starting at 3:30 pm PT. AllThingsD will be there with live coverage and analysis.

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Available today are Dell’s latest desktops, the XPS 8500 and Vostro 470, both of which feature the new Ivy Bridge processors.

The XPS 8500 is designed for those who do a lot of multimedia work, such as editing videos and designing graphics, and is also suitable for gamers. Depending on your needs, you can build your computer with either an Intel Core i5 or i7 quad-core processor, and there are several graphics-card options from AMD Radeon and Nvidia.

To ensure high performance, the XPS 8500 also has USB 3.0 for faster data transfer and various solid-state drive configurations, which will help boost application load and boot-up times.

Meanwhile, the Vostro 470 goes after the small-business segment with its extra security and storage features. The Windows 7 desktop offers up to two terabytes of storage and 12 gigabytes of memory capacity, plus expandability options. It also works with backup services like DataSafe Online Backup.

Like the XPS 8500, the Vostro 470 offers the same processor options and USB 3.0.

One other factor that might attract small businesses to the Vostro 470 is its more affordable price tag. Pricing for the Vostro 470 starts at $549, while the XPS 8500 starts at $749. Both are available now through Dell’s Web site and select retail stores nationwide.

Toshiba’s new Excite line, which the Japanese electronics maker is officially announcing today, will include 7.7-inch, 10-inch and 13-inch models. All three Wi-Fi-only tablets are running Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system; they are aluminum-encased, have Gorilla Glass displays, come with a five-megapixel rear camera and a two-megapixel front-facing camera, and include new Nvidia TegraTM 3 processors.

The Excite 7.7 also has an AMOLED display, a micro-USB port and a micro-SD card slot; while the Excite 10 has an LED-backlit display, micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports, and a full-sized SD card slot. At 1.32 pounds, the new 10-inch weighs just slightly less than Toshiba’s last tablet.

Most interesting might be Toshiba’s 13-inch entrant into the tablet market. The device has a 13.3-inch diagonal LED-backlit display and weighs 2.2 pounds. At first glance, it looks gigantic, but it isn’t really meant to be a take-it-with-you tablet. Toshiba’s aiming this one at tablet users who rarely, if ever, use their devices out of the home; the computer maker has said it envisions the Excite 13 as a kitchen-counter or coffee-table device.

The Excite 10 will hit the market on May 6, priced at $450 for a 16 gigabyte model — still $50 less than the starting price of the new LTE iPad — while the Exite 7.7 and Excite 13 tablets will go on sale June 10. Those base models will cost $500 and $650, respectively.

And at that point, Toshiba’s Thrive tablets will go away.

Toshiba first introduced its Thrive tablet in July of last year, and attempted to set its product apart from the iPad by incorporating some features one might expect on a PC. As AllThingsD’s Walt Mossberg pointed out in his review of the Thrive, the 10-inch Android tablet came with a full-sized USB port and HDMI port, a removable battery and a full-sized SD slot for flash-memory cards. Its base model originally cost $430 at launch, though Toshiba later lowered the price.

In September, Toshiba introduced the 7-inch version of the Thrive, again with easy connectivity through other devices, though with micro-versions of the USB, HDMI and SD card ports. That product just came to market in late 2011.

In addition to the new tablets, Toshiba is also introducing a redesigned HD All-in-One desktop computer, two new Qosmio gaming laptops, and a stable of upgraded laptops from the Satellite P and Satellite S series, as well as new, slightly lower-priced Satellite L and Satellite C Series laptops.

Mr. Kaku, who is 65, enjoys making predictions. In his latest book, “Physics of the Future,” which Anchor released in paperback in February, he predicts driverless cars by 2020 and synthetic organs by 2030. If his forecasts sound strange, Mr. Kaku understands the skepticism. “If you could meet your grandkids as elderly citizens in the year 2100,” he offers, “you would view them as being, basically, Greek gods.” Nonetheless, he says, “that’s where we’re headed” — and he worries that the U.S. will fall behind in this technological onrush.

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The company’s profit climbed by nearly 6 percent in the quarter, despite persistent worries that demand for personal computers is down generally in the face of worldwide economic uncertainty, the popularity of tablet devices like Apple’s iPad, and smartphones in which Intel’s chips are not a significant factor.

Yet, as has been the case for the last several quarters, Intel knows the demand for its global markets — specifically Brazil, Russia, India, and China — far better than any industry analyst, and its executives, especially CEO Paul Otellini, have seemed to enjoy bursting the bubbles of the IDCs and Gartners of the world, who continue to preach a catechism of PC doom.

It’s important for the wider tech industry, because if Intel is healthy, it says a lot about the health of the rest of tech. If PCs are selling well, that means consumers and companies are buying them, either to replace new machines or buying a PC for the first time. And if PCs are selling well, then servers are selling well. Behind all that talk about cloud computing and cloud services are physical servers sitting in a data center somewhere, usually containing Intel chips.

The earnings conference call is about to start, so we’ll get some better indications about how and why Intel managed to surprise the Street once again.

2:35 pm: Ah, joining the conference call in progress. CEO Paul Otellini is speaking and, naturally, he’s crowing about Intel landing a chip in a Lenovo smartphone announced at CES last week.

“In the first quarter, we completed the acquisitions of McAfee and Intel Mobile Communications, formerly of Infineon. They will allow us to extend our strategies across computing.”

He’s recounting highlights of the past fiscal year. During Q4, Intel acquired Telap, which specializes in location-based technologies.

Now he’s talking about a smartphone reference design, basically a board around which a phone maker can build and customize. In the reference design is an Intel Medfield chip. Also, a strategic relationship with Motorola Mobility. “While the Lenovo and Motorola designs are first steps, we’re not done making announcements in the space.”

Now he’s talking about more chips for 2012. For example, 70 Ultrabooks are coming to market this year.

2:39 pm: CFO Stacy Smith is speaking. Nice gross margins of 65.5 percent, which were in the high end of the range. That’s Intel’s speciality — efficiency.

Smith: We saw a reduction of orders for microprocessors as a result of the Thailand flooding. The flooding didn’t affect sales directly, he says.

Smith: Q1 revenue will be down a little more from the average seasonal decline, as the flooding will continue to affect sales.

Smith: 2012 growth of revenue in the high end of single digits. Capital spending of $12.5 billion, in order to build a fancy new fab.

Smith: We continue to see strong results in emerging markets, as increased incomes allow more people to afford PCs.

Time for Q&A with the analysts.

First question from Citi: He’s asking about gross-margin projections and revenues. What is the PC forecast assumption that underlies that?

Smith: It will play out similar to this year. There will be some unit growth, and we’ll benefit from a rich product mix. The high single-digit number in perspective. Strip out some things from 2011, we expect it to come down, in part because of lower GDP growth, but we see the same kind of trends in 2012 that we saw in 2011.

Citi analyst asks if the unit costs per chip are coming down.

Smith: That’s a normal phenomenon as we ramp factories to a new process, and then the cost comes down over the course of the year.

A question from Jefferies: As you get more success in the smartphone and tablet markets, I’m wondering if it’s your intention to get more chips up and down the stack, or is it different from PCs?

Otellini: Our intention is to participate broadly in all three of those markets. In tablets, we’ll be well-positioned for that. Who knows where the prices go over time, but we’d use the advanced silicon integration capabilities that we have to drive the costs down. We’re coming in at the top of the smartphone market; we’re aiming at best performance and very good battery life. And the Infineon acquisition has given us a very good position in basic phones. They shipped about 400 million modems.

Jefferies: Do they inherently carry more profitability than the PC processor business?

Otellini: The other guys have lower margins. But we’ll get paid twice. We’ll get paid as the foundry, but also for the architecture.

2:50 pm: Question from Bank of America: There were a lot of announcements on Ultrabooks from CES. Will they cannibalize notebook sales?

Otellini: I have not seen this level of excitement since before Centrino, which was in 2003. Initially, you will see this will be a replacement of existing notebook sales. People will trade up. As we move through 2012 and into 2013 as Windows 8 machines roll out, you have the possibility or even the probability of many of those machines incorporating touch. At that point, the machines incorporate the best of both the PC and the tablet. I don’t know how that plays out, but we’ll be well-positioned.

Question from JMP Securities: I know you don’t guide by segment, but what’s happening on the data center side of the business? And how does Romley change that? (Romley is a future server chip.)

Smith: Let me do a higher-level look. The data-center business can be pretty lumpy, but on a secular basis, we’re pretty confident in the growth trends.

Otellini: We’re seeing stronger growth for Romley than we saw for Nehalem at the same point in its lifespan, two years ago. Initially, it will not drive the same kind of replacement cycle that Nehalem did. It will drive replacement for high-capacity needs. I think this product is the most well-rounded in the genre so far.

Question from Deutsche Bank: Overall, as we look at flood impact, how should we see that snapping back, and against the backdrop of the seasonality?

Otellini: There are more moving pieces as I look out over the next 11 months. Our view is that the industry seems to be hitting the bottom of their output trough in Jan. and Feb. Everyone who seems to want to buy a PC has been able to. There are some stockouts in particular SKUs. You will see some compression of the supply chain. We think there is likely to be some refilling of the pipes in the second quarter, and into the third quarter. Or people will learn to live with leaner supply chains, which is always good for us.

3:00 pm: Question from Goldman Sachs: What’s the incremental growth in capacity? And what is the initial assumption on factory loadings?

Smith: Let’s talk about what’s driving the capital spending. $12.5 billion is a big number, but you have to take in the context of how our business has grown. Then it makes sense. I think my depreciation as a percent of revenue stays in a healthy range. In terms of the makeup of specific capital spending, it’s a two-year cycle as we’re building buildings. That part starts to come down in 2013. Buildings are depreciated over a longer period of time.

In terms of factory utilization, we’re running full-out today. We’re just in the beginning of the 22-nanometer cycle. We took advantage of the flooding by taking some older equipment offline sooner than we would have otherwise. We’re selling every 22-nanometer unit we can get out there.

3:06 pm: Totally missed the question from UBS. Sorry, UBS.

Question from Credit Suisse about Ultrabooks. Are there any sort of milestones you expect — perhaps, say, percentage of total notebooks?

Otellini: Starting with the mix. Core processors are about 70 percent of our mix, and that’s historically high for our premium brand. What we can’t yet predict is the mix between i3, i5 and i7. As we move toward the second half of the year, the mix comes down to i3. In terms of a target, our goal would be to exit the year with about 40 percent of consumer notebooks being Ultrabooks.

3:11 pm: J.P. Morgan asks if Intel is going to continue to spend like a drunken sailor on capital expenditures and R&D.

Smith says Intel is making some important investments this year, but they will come down from here.

A question from Nomura: Android tablet sales seemed like a disappointment in 2011. What was the issue, and is there a reason to be more optimistic this year?

Otellini: They were where I thought they would be, but I was below where others were. Until you get to Ice Cream Sandwich, you’re at a comparison with Apple’s iPad. The other part of that test is the Windows 8 tablets that are being queued up for production. I don’t think anything about the tablet market is settled yet. The jury is out on the long-term segmentation by form factor.

Ew. Questions from Barclays are being turned back. Smith just won’t go where he wants them to go. Too granular.

3:16 pm: Otellini: The data-center storage is not your grandmother’s data-center business of before. Back to lumpy data-center sales, when Facebook or Apple turns on a new data center. We’re seeing a change to the linearity to data-center sales. Expect more short-term lumpiness, but stick to the year-on-year growth.

One more question to go. And it’s from Caris & Co. He’s asking about capex again.

Smith: If you look at spending for capex in 2012, a historically large part of it is the four-factory model. From here, our capex will be a function of two things — the unit growth we see and the speed with which we bring our process technologies to the leading edge. We balance off those decisions as we go forward. With a big increase in units, we’ll spend the capex to support it.

Caris: You’ve taken on some debt in the quarter, as you look for flexibility to buy back more stock.

Smith: Our balance sheet supports taking on more debt, and we certainly have the capability of doing so. We’ve said in the past, our first priority is investing in the business. We bought McAfee and Infineon. We had a significant increase in dividends in 2011, and as a percent of free cash flow. We did take advantage of low interest rates and high-dividend yield to buy back a lot more stock.

And that is the end of the call. Good night!

Sales for the fourth quarter came in at $13.9 billion, and per share earnings were 64 cents, for a net of $3.4 billion. For the full year Intel finished with sales of $54 billion and a net of $12.9 billion and EPS of $2.39, all of them records. So even amid the diminished expectations of the moment, Intel is sounding the victory trumpets, and not unreasonably.

The statement is below. Come back in a little while and I’ll be live blogging the earnings conference call.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 19, 2012 – Intel Corporation today reported full-year revenue of $54 billion, operating income of $17.5 billion, net income of $12.9 billion and EPS of $2.39 — all records. The company generated approximately $21 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $4.1 billion and used $14.1 billion to repurchase 642 million shares of stock.

For the fourth quarter, Intel posted revenue of $13.9 billion, operating income of $4.6 billion, net income of $3.4 billion and EPS of 64 cents. The company generated approximately $6.6 billion in cash from operations, paid dividends of $1.1 billion and used $4.1 billion to repurchase 174 million shares of stock.

“2011 was an exceptional year for Intel,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. “With outstanding execution the company performed superbly, growing revenue by more than $10 billion and eclipsing all annual revenue and earnings records. With a tremendous product and technology pipeline for 2012, we’re excited about the global growth opportunities presented by Ultrabook systems, the data center, security and the introduction of Intel-powered smartphones and tablets.”

Business Outlook
Intel’s Business Outlook does not include the potential impact of any mergers, acquisitions, divestitures or other business combinations that may be completed after Jan. 19.

Q1 2012 (GAAP, unless otherwise stated)

Revenue: $12.8 billion, plus or minus $500 million.
Gross margin percentage: 63 percent and 64 percent Non-GAAP (excluding amortization of acquisition-related intangibles), both plus or minus a couple percentage points.
R&D plus MG&A spending: approximately $4.4 billion.
Amortization of acquisition-related intangibles: approximately $75 million.
Impact of equity investments and interest and other: approximately zero.

Depreciation: approximately $1.5 billion.

Full-Year 2012 (GAAP, unless otherwise stated)

Gross margin percentage: 64 percent and 65 percent Non-GAAP (excluding amortization of acquisition-related intangibles), both plus or minus a few percentage points.
Spending (R&D plus MG&A): $18.3 billion, plus or minus $200 million.
R&D spending: approximately $10.1 billion.
Amortization of acquisition-related intangibles: approximately $300 million.
Depreciation: $6.5 billion, plus or minus $100 million.
Tax Rate: approximately 29 percent.
Full-year capital spending: $12.5 billion, plus or minus $400 million.

For additional information regarding Intel’s results and Business Outlook, please see the CFO commentary at: www.intc.com/results.cfm.

Status of Business Outlook
Intel’s Business Outlook is posted on intc.com and may be reiterated in public or private meetings with investors and others. The Business Outlook will be effective through the close of business March 16 unless earlier updated; except that the Business Outlook for amortization of acquisition-related intangibles, impact of equity investments and interest and other, and tax rate, will be effective only through the close of business on Jan. 26. Intel’s Quiet Period will start from the close of business on March 16 until publication of the company’s first-quarter earnings release, scheduled for April 17. During the Quiet Period, all of the Business Outlook and other forward-looking statements disclosed in the company’s news releases and filings with the SEC should be considered as historical, speaking as of prior to the Quiet Period only, and not subject to an update by the company.

Q4 and 2011 Key Financial Information (GAAP)

Q4 Business unit revenue:

PC Client Group revenue of $9 billion, up 17 percent year-over-year.
Data Center Group revenue of $2.7 billion, up 8 percent year-over-year.
Other Intel® architecture group revenue of $1.1 billion, up 35 percent year-over-year.
Intel® Atom™ microprocessor and chipset revenue of $167 million, down 57 percent year-over-year.
McAfee Inc. and Intel Mobile Communications contributed revenue of approximately $1 billion.

Full Year Business unit revenue:

PC Client Group had revenue of $35.4 billion, up 17% from 2010.
Data Center Group had revenue of $10.1 billion, up 17% from 2010.
Other Intel architecture group had revenue of $5.0 billion, up 64% from 2010.
Intel Atom microprocessor and chipset revenue of $1.2 billion, down 25% from 2010.
McAfee Inc. and Intel Mobile Communications contributed revenue of $3.6 billion.

Risk Factors
The above statements and any others in this document that refer to plans and expectations for the first quarter, the year and the future are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Words such as “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” “may,” “will,” “should” and their variations identify forward-looking statements. Statements that refer to or are based on projections, uncertain events or assumptions also identify forward-looking statements. Many factors could affect Intel’s actual results, and variances from Intel’s current expectations regarding such factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements. Intel presently considers the following to be the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company’s expectations.

Demand could be different from Intel’s expectations due to factors including changes in business and economic conditions, including supply constraints and other disruptions affecting customers; customer acceptance of Intel’s and competitors’ products; changes in customer order patterns including order cancellations; and changes in the level of inventory at customers. Uncertainty in global economic and financial conditions poses a risk that consumers and businesses may defer purchases in response to negative financial events, which could negatively affect product demand and other related matters.
Intel operates in intensely competitive industries that are characterized by a high percentage of costs that are fixed or difficult to reduce in the short term and product demand that is highly variable and difficult to forecast. Revenue and the gross margin percentage are affected by the timing of Intel product introductions and the demand for and market acceptance of Intel’s products; actions taken by Intel’s competitors, including product offerings and introductions, marketing programs and pricing pressures and Intel’s response to such actions; and Intel’s ability to respond quickly to technological developments and to incorporate new features into its products.
Intel is in the process of transitioning to its next generation of products on 22nm process technology, and there could be execution and timing issues associated with these changes, including products defects and errata and lower than anticipated manufacturing yields.
The gross margin percentage could vary significantly from expectations based on capacity utilization; variations in inventory valuation, including variations related to the timing of qualifying products for sale; changes in revenue levels; product mix and pricing; the timing and execution of the manufacturing ramp and associated costs; start-up costs; excess or obsolete inventory; changes in unit costs; defects or disruptions in the supply of materials or resources; product manufacturing quality/yields; and impairments of long-lived assets, including manufacturing, assembly/test and intangible assets.
The tax rate expectation is based on current tax law and current expected income. The tax rate may be affected by the jurisdictions in which profits are determined to be earned and taxed; changes in the estimates of credits, benefits and deductions; the resolution of issues arising from tax audits with various tax authorities, including payment of interest and penalties; and the ability to realize deferred tax assets.
Gains or losses from equity securities and interest and other could vary from expectations depending on gains or losses on the sale, exchange, change in the fair value or impairments of debt and equity investments; interest rates; cash balances; and changes in fair value of derivative instruments.
The majority of Intel’s non-marketable equity investment portfolio balance is concentrated in companies in the flash memory market segment, and declines in this market segment or changes in management’s plans with respect to Intel’s investments in this market segment could result in significant impairment charges, impacting restructuring charges as well as gains/losses on equity investments and interest and other.

Intel’s results could be affected by adverse economic, social, political and physical/infrastructure conditions in countries where Intel, its customers or its suppliers operate, including military conflict and other security risks, natural disasters, infrastructure disruptions, health concerns and fluctuations in currency exchange rates.
Expenses, particularly certain marketing and compensation expenses, as well as restructuring and asset impairment charges, vary depending on the level of demand for Intel’s products and the level of revenue and profits.

Intel’s results could be affected by the timing of closing of acquisitions and divestitures.
Intel’s results could be affected by adverse effects associated with product defects and errata (deviations from published specifications), and by litigation or regulatory matters involving intellectual property, stockholder, consumer, antitrust and other issues, such as the litigation and regulatory matters described in Intel’s SEC reports. An unfavorable ruling could include monetary damages or an injunction prohibiting us from manufacturing or selling one or more products, precluding particular business practices, impacting Intel’s ability to design its products, or requiring other remedies such as compulsory licensing of intellectual property.

A detailed discussion of these and other factors that could affect Intel’s results is included in Intel’s SEC filings, including the report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended Oct. 1, 2011.

Whether women buy more tech products than men seems to be another facet of the subject emerging right now.

According to a new report from Parks Associates, more women than men are downloading movies and music, women do the majority of game-playing across some platforms, and women have higher “purchase intentions” than men do when it comes to some electronics.

In the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” Ferris got a computer, while Jeannie got a car.

Women are 40 percent more likely than men to play games on Facebook, represent the majority of Nintendo Wii players, and match men in terms of owning and playing Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PS3, says the report. And women are 73 percent more likely than men to have watched a full-length TV show online in the past 30 days.

Parks Associates also says that women have higher purchase intentions than men do when it comes to buying popular devices like tablets, laptops and smartphones, though men’s interest surpassed women’s when it came to purchasing flat-screen LCD TVs.

Intent, of course, is different from pulling the trigger and pressing the e-commerce “buy” button.

This Nielsen study, meanwhile, refutes the idea that women aren’t likely to purchase advanced TVs.

And while the Parks Associates report says 88 percent of women purchased tech-related items last year, compared to 83 percent of the men surveyed, not all recent reports point to women as besting men in tech-buying.

Confused yet? You’re not alone.

Let’s look at this chronologically:

In 2008, men were estimated to spend $902 annually on consumer electronics, compared with the $558 women spent on tech each year.

By 2009, women were spending more on consumer electronics than men, according to the CEA. It says women accounted for $55 billion of the $96 billion spent on electronics gear that year.

But in 2010, as our WSJ colleague points out here, the average man reported spending $3 on consumer electronics for every $2 the average woman said she spent.

With all of the fluctuating data, perhaps comparing women to men when it comes to consumer tech spending isn’t the right way to look at it. It’s how much growth is occurring overall when it comes to women and consumer tech.

We’ve come a long way from this 2003 report on women being “comfortable” purchasing PCs and DVD hardware.

Despite the fact that women were still trailing men in terms of consumer electronics purchases in 2010 — women spent $631 on average, compared to men’s average annual spend of $969 — women still spent $73 more on tech products than they did in 2009. And that number is expected to continue to grow.

You’ve probably heard a lot about the emergence of female purchasing power. A lot of this may have to do with the current state of the economy and shifts within households: While men are recovering more quickly from the recession — regaining more than one out of three jobs lost, compared to women regaining about one in four — men have been hit harder over the past few years, hovering at a full percentage point higher in terms of unemployment. (Some of the recent employment gains for men may also be attributed to a disproportionate number of men working in the government sector who have been regaining their jobs.)

Many women consider themselves to be chief financial officers — of the home. According to a Harvard Business Review report from last year, U.S. women continue to say they control more than 70 percent of total consumer spending. Earlier reports indicate that this number could be even higher, but some researchers say the number is murky.

Another Nielsen study shows big differences between what female consumers in developed countries spend money on versus what females in emerging countries spend on: More than half of women in emerging countries focus on allocating household funds for their children’s education, compared to 16 percent of women in developed countries, who are more likely to spend on vacations and other items. And yet, in both developed and emerging countries, more than half of women surveyed say that purchases of computers, mobile phones and smartphones have changed their lives for the better.

Bottom line: Women are making more buying decisions, and that includes consumer technology products, though the growth to date seems incremental. And that doesn’t necessarily have to be measured against what men are buying — though marketers like to know these things.

We can only hope that increases in women’s tech purchasing also means that manufacturers and marketers are getting savvier about that age-old question — what do women want? — and that the answer isn’t necessarily hardware in stereotypically girlish hues.

One area of literacy that’s changing is the order in which things are presented — it isn’t linear, it’s organised spatially, and often some meaning is carried in the design, layout, images, sounds, movement, subtle changes in colour in a game — it’s all part of what literacy is in today’s world. These are fundamental changes to operational literacy, the biggest since the printing press.

– Dr. Rosie Flewitt of the Educational Dialogue Research Unit at the Open University, in conversation with Stewart Mitchell of PCPro about how keeping computers from children at an early age may deprive them of modern communication skills

The one getting all the attention is an offering in the Ultrabook category that’s priced at $900. It’s called the HP Folio¹³, and aside from its price, its headline feature is that it delivers a full nine hours of battery life.

The Ultrabook is a concept primarily being pushed by Intel, so much so that Intel even owns the trademark rights to the name. Inside the Folio¹³ are the latest Intel Core processors. It represents the hopes of a PC industry that has seen anemic sales with little sign of a bounceback, though that depends on whom you ask.

Major challenges have been the continued popularity among consumers of Apple’s iPad, and to a lesser extent other tablets, and the impressive sales of Apple’s MacBook Air, which now accounts for nearly a third of Apple’s notebook sales. It may not be an Ultrabook technically, but conceptually the similarities are substantial: Thin, light, sporting solid-state drives and speedy boot-up times.

And while the MacBook Air is a big winner for Apple, there’s as yet little evidence that there’s much demand for a similar product running Windows. Last month, it emerged that Acer and Asus expect to sell only 100,000 each by the of 2011, which would amount to between one third and one half of what they originally hoped.

Yes, it’s early days for Ultrabooks — machines that support Intel’s full design vision won’t be on the market for another several months. And the industry is just now starting to bang the drum seriously for the Ultrabook. Asus Chairman Jonney Shih talked about the category in an interview with Walt Mossberg at AsiaD last month.

In its press releases, HP expressed the hopes of an entire industry when it quoted IDC analyst Crawford Del Prete saying he expects PC makers — including HP — to sell 95 million Ultrabooks by 2015. At their current levels, there’s nowhere to go but up.

Someone screwed up how computers work, and I blame it on Bill Gates. I had one typewriter in 50 years. But I’ve bought seven computers in six years. I suppose that’s why Bill Gates is rich and Underwood is out of business.

— Andy Rooney

It’s Ian King’s job to find it.

Often clad in a kilt, and sporting a Grizzly Adams-like coiffure, Mr. King is traveling the globe in search of the 7094 and other obscure, often huge, old computer gear. The machines will stock Mr. Allen’s appointment-only Living Computer Museum.

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Big Blue on Thursday is announcing two experimental chips that are structured more like the brain, and could become building blocks for what IBM is calling cognitive computing. The eventual goal is to make machines that can more closely emulate the way humans perceive, learn and take action — using much less space and energy than powerful conventional computers.

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