Weeks most important tech stories Feb 17th

I want to start a collection of important stories across the web. These are huge tech stories which can change industy course quickly.

1. News.com report on Montalvo Systems: If anyone knows me, I like diversity in the computer processor market. It would be an understatement to say that we haven't been moving closer to that last year. With Apple move to Intel and AMD processor delays, non-Intel processors have become endangered. Hopefully this company will help diversify the market. Not too many times that CNET has a scoop that gives a lot of information. see also the Inq and of course the Register has been rumoring about this company forever.
   
2. Rumor NVIDIA and AMD merger: I really don't give this any credence. Why did I put it on? Because I think NVIDIA knows that they will need a CPU to compete. Even with the drive to move more general purpose stuff to the GPU, a CPU still runs the system. So, why am I down on this deal? Because AMD is a old corporation that has huge amount of debt. Plus, the feeling that there is no new technology coming from them the next year and a half makes me feel that NVIDIA would go somewhere else for a CPU-- Montalvo Systems perhaps.
   
3. Ars first look at Haiku: Back in the mid 90's BEOS was the cool new OS developed for a great multimedia experience, multiple cpu usage and being very responsive. Since then it has been bought by ummm Palm Source, which was then bought by Access and.......... Okay back to Haiku, this is an open source attempt to rebuild the BEOS operating system. Hopefully the BEOS implementation of aggressive thread usage will help expand core usage as we now live in a time of dual core processors. Problem is that many of the ideas have already been imported into the other modern OS. But the clean approach of BEOS can't be understated. Hoping Haiku re-ignites the fire.
4. Cloudbook release: About 9 months ago three companies (Palm Foleo, Via nanobook, Asus Eee from Intel) came out with specs for a cheap sub-notebook. These three have had different public reactions, with one being a huge winner, one being canceled, and one being released this month. Out of all of them, I liked the Palm the best, with low power ARM processor, instant on, and large screen. Because none of these would be used as a main computer, who cared about x86 inside. Maybe the unreal price of the Eee scared Palm away (announced at $199, but came in at $399). Anyway, the Cloudbook is the Via nanobook coming to the US. The Nanobook was announced for $600, but Cloudbook is gunning for Eee at $399. Heres hoping that we get Isaiah in the Cloudbook soon.
   

Thats it. Add to the list in comments.