Ageia's technology is brilliant. They manufacture an add-on video adapter that relieves video cards from crunching complex physics math and frees them up to do what they do best: render pretty things on the screen. While their PhysX-based cards became more affordable in recent years their business model had two major holes: (1) They required that game developers wrote code specifically for their niche card and (2) They didn't have the resources to beat them over the head if they didn't.  With only a few games supporting their platform, what's a girl to do?  Go bankrupt or get bought out. Sorry ATI, Nvidia has more money.

While no plans for single-card integration or industry-wide face-beating has been announced yet I can only predict that good things will come from this technological matrimony. Here are my predictions for a post-Nvidia Ageia:

* We'll see something called the GeForce Ultimage Orgasm which contains a built-in Physics processing unit (PPU) within two of their product cycles (~1 year or less)

* Nvidia will try to stop everyone from saying PPU because it sounds too much like GPU, and somebody in the marketing and PR department will raise hell. The term is already vanished from their press releases in favor of praise for their "parallel processing".

*  PPU technology (ahem) will become mainstream in PCs in 2 years due to the crushing weight of Nvidia's nads

* Nvidia shareholders will sleep better tonight thinking that the absurd cost of PC hardware and declining innovation of PC gaming experiences will someday overthrow the bang-for-buck of consoles within five years. I know, Vista's holding everybody back, but it's for your own good and there's console licensing revenue in them thar hills!

*  SLI-linking future video cards containing PPU will cause a swirling portal to open near your wallet that will rid you of roughly $1,300 when your wife least expects it

A webcast on February 13 will take place on Nvidia's web site. For more details and carb-filled business faces quoting things on how "excellent" and "best of breed" each other's corporate prostate has become, hit up the official press release. Pardon me while I do dust off my VESA bus.