Facebook has more than 200 million active users, and as you might imagine, keeping all of their information available (never mind the stuff pertaining to less involved people) requires some serious hardware.  Yet according to the company’s vice president of technical operations, certain manufacturers are falling short of the mark.

Intel has announced today that it is acquiring software-maker Wind River Systems for $884 million. Wind River makes embedded devices.

Embedded systems and mobile devices include smart phones, mobile Internet devices, other consumer electronics (CE) devices, in-car "info-tainment" systems and other automotive areas, networking equipment, aerospace and defense, energy and thousands of other devices.

Intel said today that the record $1.45 billion fine imposed on it by the European Commission for violating antitrust rules, will not force it to reduce investment or cut its dividend.

"There’s still plenty of cash flow from operations to invest in our business, pay the fine and pay the dividend," Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said at an analyst event in London on Wednesday.

"As we’ve said in the Q1 earnings call, we are not having any conversations about cutting the dividend."

The European Commission has imposed a record fine against Intel Corp of $1.45 billion (1.06 billion euros) for violating antitrust rules and other practices used to exclude competitor AMD from the computer chip market.

The European Commission is set to make Wednesday a fairly important day in Intel’s corporate life, according to multiple reports.  Unfortunately for the chipmaker, Wednesday will be important in a very negative sense, as it’s liable to face a huge fine and be forced to change some business practices.

Take it from a car guy: the people who are willing to spend time with you in a garage are some of the finest individuals you’ll ever know.  And so it seems Facebook has a new BFF, as Intel will sponsor some Facebook Developer Garages this year. 

Intel recently began showing off its Learning Series, PCs designed specifically for educational purposes. The series includes the Clamshell Classmate PC and the Convertible Classmate PC, both of which were created with students, parents, teachers, and schools in mind.

Mike McDonald spoke with Intel’s Holly Bourne about the machines at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas earlier this month. She was kind enough to demonstrate them:

Don’t be surprised if college students, business travelers, and people who simply have a lot of tech at home suddenly become a lot more fond of Intel.  The company has introduced something called My WiFi that aims make wireless communication between devices a lot simpler.

I’m tracking the dismal news on all the various blogs. This is the worst month the tech industry has ever seen. The bad news from Microsoft, Intel, IBM is all over TechMeme and TechFuga.

Most Americans find Internet access essential to daily life, with some favoring it over TV and having sex, according to a survey by Harris Interactive done on behalf of Intel.

The survey found that the majority of Americans (65%) feel they cannot live without Internet access.  In addition 71 percent said it is important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices, such as laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices that offer them updates on important issues including the economy.

Intel and Yahoo have announced plans to introduce widgets to television via set-top boxes.

The application is called the Widget Channel and will allow viewers to use rich Internet applications designed for TV while watching programs. The channel will be powered by the Yahoo Widget Engine.

Facebook is pretty fast and reliable, and with Intel’s help, it’s doing its best to maintain or improve that level of performance.  The two companies have signed an agreement concerning infrastructure solutions.

Uber-geeks have been talking for a while about cloud computing and how it’s the future, especially the geeks at Google, and later, Microsoft. Today, though, it’s a partnership between Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and Yahoo generating the next wave of cloud computing buzz.

The chipmaker’s long-standing dismissal of antitrust claims by its main rival, AMD, will receive a test as Federal Trade Commission regulators take a closer look at Intel.

Solid state drives aren’t exactly mainstream.  They would fit right in with the solar panels, Prius fleets, and organic food that can be found around the Googleplex, however, and that’s reportedly where they’re going.

Today I will be moderating a panel at the New Communications Forum here in Santa Rosa, California which I’m particularly excited about because it’s exactly the kind of juicy broad topic that I think can yield really interesting discussions.

Before we get into the details, please keep in mind that no one from WebProNews had any part in making this list.  But a list of influential people in technology is indeed out, and it puts Tim Berners-Lee, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page in the top three.

I noticed that eComm 2008 is coming up, 3/12-14.

Take a look at what Martin Gedd, on the advisory board, said on his blog:

The semi-dormant spat between Intel and AMD over Intel’s business practices heated up with a broad subpoena hitting Intel’s offices, courtesy of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Intel announced they are leaving the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child project. OLPC produces low-cost laptops for developing nations.

Fighting and differences between the two couldn’t be bridged. It was six months ago Intel and OLPC founder Nick Negroponte announced they would work together to produce the laptops.

Information overload is being called the 2008 "Problem-of-the-Year" by research firm Basex.