A wireless exec from Disney was at the recent invite-only "brain drain," according to a tipster who was at the meeting on Intel's campus in Santa Clara, Calif. As was John Faith, the head of MySpace Mobile. Alan Kay, a famous computer scientist attended, along with a host of other graybeards. So what did Intel show all the geeks it gathered?

Executives shared secret plans to build a new mobile device based on Intel technology that the chipmaker hopes to have on the market this year. The inspiration: the runaway success of Apple's iPhone. And the fear: that this will be a rerun of Intel's past failed attempts, like the dead-on arrival "ultramobile portable computer" concepts it showed off last year.

Devices based on Intel's design — they probably won't carry the Intel brand, except in the "Intel Inside" sense — will run Google's Android operating system. The design displayed at the summit also featured a "shitload" of variable resistance sensors, our source told us — a simple technology found in dials, touchscreens, and other input sensors. Apple uses a more complex touchscreen technology in its iPhone, suggesting Intel's approach might lead to cheaper touch-sensitive phones, or even devices that respond to the way they're held.

The résumés of the people in attendance suggested a serious effort — just about every major tech company in Silicon Valley was represented. And Intel has reason to gun for Apple's iPhone. Apple has bought its own chip-design subsidiary, allowing it to bypass Intel's industry-standard processors. But that's all we know so far. Has anyone else heard about this top-secret Intel summit? Fill us in on what you know.

(Photo via Buylabcoat.com)

Earlier, we noted Goldman's habit of dressing up a top Apple flack's spin as information coming from a "source inside Apple." He's now extended that practice to Intel, the large chipmaker.

Bloomberg recently got a scoop about Intel CEO Paul Otellini predicting a first-quarter loss in a conversation with employees circulated internally. It's the kind of story CNBC viewers are hungry for.

But instead of getting the story first, Goldman tried to knock it down. Why? An Intel "source" told him that Otellini's comments didn't come in a "memo," but instead appeared in a "transcript." It's the kind of specious semantics only a flack would engage in, and no competent reporter would buy.

Indeed, later in the piece, Goldman quotes Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy. That makes it look like the extent of Goldman's reporting was this: He spoke to Mulloy and agreed to attribute some of his comments to an unnamed "source" and print other on-the-record comments verbatim, magically transforming a one-source story straight from a company flack into something that looks like it has multiple sources.

What's really bizarre: We've heard that Goldman claims to be tight with Intel chairman Craig Barrett, who is no doubt one of the "tech-industry CEO" sources he cites on air. Former CNBC employees told us Goldman once flew to Brazil with Barrett on an Intel corporate jet and bragged about going on a hunting trip with the tech mogul. So why didn't Goldman get the scoop on Intel's first quarter, if he's so tight with Barrett? There would be far fewer questions about Goldman's reporting if he simply got stories first, and got stories right.

Forrester CEO George Colony listed them last week:

• Intel's chips are primarily sold inside desktop and notebook PCs. IT spending is now spread out elsewhere, so that Intel is no longer one component of a Windows/Intel monopoly.
• Virtualization software, which runs many server environments simultaneously on one chip, has reduced the demand for Intel-based servers.
• Companies are laying off employees, not buying them new computers.

1) Intel is not the bellwether that it once was. Personal computers and servers, the primary destination for Intel's processors, are not nearly as large a percentage of tech spending as they were back in 2001.

2) Layoffs in the economy have already begun. Fewer employees, fewer PCs needed.

3) Large companies are accelerating virtualization projects. Virtualization is a fancy word for running more applications on fewer servers. It is greener (less power), simpler (fewer servers to break), and cheaper. Good for companies looking to lower capital expenditure and operating expenses in a recession, but bad for Intel.

One company which listened, to its detriment, to shareholders was Microsoft. When Bill Gates ran the software company, he liked to keep a year's worth of expenses on hand, in case things went awry. Microsoft is no longer quite so stingy with its cash; it dribbles some out in dividends, and gave shareholders a $32 billion payout a few years back. Good thing it didn't shell out $44 billion for Yahoo; that deal would have left it cash-poor and debt-ridden, at exactly the wrong time. Even so, Microsoft's balance sheet is no longer the most sterling in tech.

So who's got cash on hand? Here are the 10 richest tech companies, from a Yahoo Finance screening. (I left out companies, like IBM, whose cash was matched by equally outsized debts.)

1. China Mobile, $31.0 billion
   China's oil, steel, and finance giants are investing overseas. Why not its leading wireless company? Yes, China censors its citizens. That was a trendy thing to worry about in August 2008.
2. Cisco Systems, $26.2 billion
   Cisco's so proud of its cash pile, its investor-relations chief has blogged about it. If only investors had any confidence in Cisco's bizarre social-network acquisition strategy, which has nothing to do with its fine telecom-equipment assets. Memo to Cisco's M&A team: Just because it has the word "network" in it doesn't mean you have to buy it.
3. Microsoft, $21.2 billion
   The $44 billion Yahoo offer was half in cash, half in stock, which would have strained Microsoft's finances and required it to take on some debt. Good thing it fell through.
4. Apple, $20.7 billion
   In the '90s, Apple almost ran out of money. No danger of that happening soon. Ever-secretive Apple rarely makes big, splashy acquisitions; that could change if the right bargain comes along.
5. Google, $12.7 billion
   A slumping share price may mean more acquisitions done for cash.
6. Intel, $12.0 billion
   Intel's chip factories require billions of dollars in investment; count on Intel to spend its money there, rather than on cute Web companies.
7. Nokia, $10.8 billion
   Like Cisco, Nokia's eager to be more of a Web player. Blogging and lifecasting are particular areas of interest. The cell-phone maker could throw investors a curveball and buy, say, Six Apart, Automattic, or Tumblr.
8. Dell, $9.0 billion
   Dell could have more cash on its hands if it manages to sell its PC factories, a move it's considering as HP chips away at its business. On the shopping list: software and services.
9. Motorola, $7.2 billion
   It's hard to see Motorola being an active acquirer until it figures out what to do with its cell-phone business.
10. Taiwan Semiconductor, $7.0 billion
    AMD's only worth $2.6 billion, and TSMC already makes some chips for it. Why not just buy it?

Ignition Partners, which put in $19 million of the $50 million in venture capital, is playing dumb, insisting it never would have invested had it known the company's true financial condition. But Entellium, which started in Malaysia in 2000, was trouble from the start. It went through a period, after the popping of the bubble, when employees went unpaid.

Since then, it attracted investments from Ignition and others, including Intel Capital, West River Capital, Sigma Ventures, and Mavcap, a Malaysian venture fund. Are we to believe that all of these investors committed their limited partners' money without a thorough audit?

Silicon Valley Bank, a tipster tells us, loaned Entellium millions of dollars and acted as the company's bank. It examined the company's books quarterly for the past three years — part of the normal loan-review process — and surely was aware of how much money was flowing into its accounts — or rather, not flowing in.

Montgomery Securities and Cascadia Capital helped Entellium raise money. Were they, too, deceived as to the company's financial condition when they presented venture capitalists with its numbers?

It is possible that Johnston and Jones are very clever fellows. But a scenario where they simply got away with defrauding every financial institution they dealt with beggars belief. The alternative scenario: That at least some of Entellium's backers were aware of the fraud, and invested in the hope that it would become someone else's problem soon enough.

We've been focused too much on software and content, even though we know there's someone from SanDisk who just flipped their lid on the playa. Likewise, there must be some poor pacifist at PA Semi who, all too happy to get sold to Apple, learned they had to continue engineering chip fab designs for jets, subs and choppers. I mean, c'mon, AMD minions, can you come up with no good dirt on Intel executives? I yearn to hear the stories from the actual front lines of technology, and not from the front of the line at the British Bankers Club or 111 Minna. Do tell. (Photo by Marcin Wichary)

Eygptian civil engineer Mamdouh Hamza offered to pay a hired killer $100,000 to assassinate an Egyptian government minister and three other government officials. Hamza called his plan "the final solution." The hired killer — actually an undercover British police officer — arrested Hamza, who went to trial in 2005.

In 2006, prosecutors charged Chinese national and Canadian citizen Xiaodong Sheldon Meng with 36 felonies, including economic espionage to benefit a foreign government. Meng's crime? Stealing code his former employer, Silicon Valley-based Quantum3D uses in fighter-pilot training software. A judge sentenced Meng to 24 months earlier this summer.

In 2007, Lan Lee, 42, of Palo Alto, and Yuefei Ge, 34, a Chinese national living in San Jose also faced charges of economic espionage after prosecutors accused the pair of stealing computer chips from Mountain View-based NetLogic Microsystems with plans on selling them to the Chinese government. Their indictment alleges the pair formed a company, Sico Microsystems, in order to create new chips based on stolen designs.

In May 1995, Silicon Valley engineer Bill Gaede rushed into a New York Times office and told a reporter: "I'm a spy, and I think they're going to kill me, so I want you to know what has happened." Gaede claimed he'd stolen computer chip designs from Intel and tried to sell them to Cuba, China and Iran before the CIA got onto his case and began hunting him down. The Times reporter didn't believe it at first, but it all turned out to be true. Gaede began serving a 33-month sentence in July 1996.

Richard Wade Farley goes by three names in the newspapers — never a good sign. In 1988, Farley was fired from Sunnyvale-based ESL, accused of sexual harrassment. Not long after, he returned with a shotgun. Seven of his former coworkers died. He barricaded himself in the office for six hours before police dragged him out.

In a way that reminded some of Farley's rampage, recently fired NEC Electronics employee Kenneth M. McMurray came back to his old office and forced Maria Elizabeth Lualhati, his ex-girlfriend and an associate systems programmer, into a lab where he shot her and then himself.

Aptix founder and ex-CEO Amr Mohsen faced charges of perjury, mail fraud, and obstruction of justice after prosecutors said he forged engineering notebooks in a failed attempt to sue a rival for patent infringement. When that case started to go against Mohsen, he allegedly told another inmate he wanted the judge to "disappear." The plan failed. Mohsen was sentenced to 17 years on January 5, 2007. According to AmrMohsen.com, "Amr and the family believe the 17-year punishment to be excessive."

Legendary Linux developer Hans Reiser, a hero to the open-source community, murdered his wife, Nina. He swore to his innocence almost up to the very end — until a judge agreed to reduce his sentence if he led police to her body. He eventually did. The reaction from Reiser's most ardent defenders: "Whoops."

When Apple bought PA Semi in the spring, we thought Steve Jobs was looking for leverage in his negotiations with Intel for more custom designs. If Apple really is going to go back to designing its own motherboards — as it did before the Intel switch — then Intel may have called Jobs's bluff. Not that that's a bad thing for PA Semi's designers — working on Mac circuitry seems more appealing than tending to Pentagon contracts, as they were doing before.

(Intel Outside image via Loren Petrich)

Grove believes the auto industry has reached what he calls a "strategic inflection point," the point at which a business has to either change or die. And he wants change in the direction of electrics; Grove has set up a course teaching about hybrids, plug-ins, and electrics in an attempt to move the discussion toward alternative energy sources. And then there's the fun part.

Mr. Grove is also a proponent of retrofitting current vehicles with the lowest fuel economy — trucks, vans and SUVs — with hybrid powerplants. Envisioning half a million Yukon owners reaching for their toolboxes, GM spokesman Greg Martin said, "We strongly discourage consumers from retrofitting vehicles." Unless they're out of warranty, in which case knock yourself out; the service department is hurting right now too.

All we hope is if Grove next ends up pushing for an Intel chip inside, he goes with an Apple OS to run it. Those Microsoft systems don't seem to be running well enough for even the back seat.[Detroit News; Photo Credit images.vnu.net]

The plan is for companies that buy into Allied Security to buy up unused patents, issue themselves nonexclusive licenses for a song and then sell the patents. While it's not clear if Allied Security is a nonprofit, former IBM veep Brian Hinman who heads up the organization asserts it's not a profit-making venture. IBM, of course, has done much to refashion itself as a promoter and producer of open-source software — something anathema to Microsoft's culture.

The same can't be said of Intellectual Ventures, which was founded by former Microsofties Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung, Intel's Peter Detkin, and Gregory Gorder of Seattle law firm Perkins Coie, which counts Microsoft as a top client. Myhrvold has been buying up patents left and right, and while his company has yet to sue anyone, he hasn't ruled it out. Microsoft executives have traditionally aped Bill Gates hard-line rhetoric when it comes to intellectual property, and there's little reason to believe Myhrvold and company are any different. While Google is also an investor in the fund (along with Apple and eBay), the Mountain View company must be worried enough about the fund's plans and ties to have helped create a potential competitor.

In other words, if Intellectual Ventures continued to aggregate patents in a competitive vacuum, it could become just as if not more dangerous a monopoly than Microsoft in the company's heyday by commanding premium royalties or denying access to patents entirely in order to hobble products and competitors. It's yet to be seen if Intellectual Ventures will carry water for the Redmond software giant in court, and for now, Allied Security is collection of legal documents and yet an actual owner of patents, but this could shape up to be one of the most boringly important battles in the coming years.