There is no secret in Silicon Valley; a certain company named Intel is tired of the slow motion within the technology industry... and they're tired of being left in the dust when it comes to mobile connectivity.

First, Intel invested US$300 million into the development of the "ultrabook" category of laptops fueled by an unrest at the lazy pace of Windows laptops which were unable to match the sleekness, small size, and satiating effect of Apple's MacBooks.  Who wasn't dumbfounded that Apple made inroads into a traditional PC market?  It was against all intiutive logic to see Apple actually succeeding at anything other than confusing the music industry!  Intel, however knew who to blame... the Windows PC manufacturers themselves.

Now, Intel is doing two additional and amazingly capital intensive things:
first, investing $100 million into "connected-car" technologies (touch for source); second, planning to develop an Internet-based competitor to cable and satellite services (touch for source, but be warned, it's the evil WSJ).

To understand these decisions better, it helps us to realize that both of these Intel pushes are based on a growing market opportunity from a technology market which is at a damn-near stand still.  Sure, consumers may be overwhelmed (or underwhelmed, depends on who you ask) with the continual "recent" buzz around iOS, Android, and all things "smartphone" and "tablet", but in all reality, these things stretch back years into the last decade of the 00s.

The other factor?  Those buzz words all typically surround ARM-based devices, which threaten Intel's market share.  Luckily for them, the horribly mangled relationship between Microsoft and Intel isn't completely dead, and both companies are just shy of ripe for a major market dominating come-back.

Connected cars were touted in the 1980s as being "just around the corner" and cable was originally supposed to be the high-tech connector between consumers and the world, but none of that panned out.  Cable's growth was limited and bogged down by the lack of investment typical with corporate greed, so long as a cash cow is involved, that is.

These technologies are well past due, and I for one, am really starting to get on the Intel bandwagon because all I can say is I agree with them... it's about damn time.