I would normally refer to the printed manual, which we do of course have access to in English, but it refers to the electronic manual for more information about USB devices, and this manual only seems to exist on the Wii U itself.
I don't have a Wii U yet (partly because it isn't out here yet), but I would expect that this information is also repeated there, in which case an American Wii U owner should be able to verify this.
At any rate, I watched the video, and based on my limited knowledge of Japanese, this seems to relate to the notice shown at 8:16:
大きな電流が流れてしまう可能性があり
「Yケーブルタイプ」でないと
Wii Uでの安定動作が保証できない
If my translation is reasonably accurate, they're essentially saying that drives requiring a Y-cable connection (an extra USB plug for power) may not function correctly. 2.5" drives which don't require this should be fine (note that some drives essentially negotiate for more power over a single port; I suspect that the Wii U does not support this, so those drives would neeed a Y-cable to get 1A).
Most likely, they're just being cautious, and your drive will work fine, but it is possible that there is some edge case where the Wii U is unable to power both ports and ends up disabling the "extra" port.
However, do note that this is entirely based on the text in the video - I don't understand spoken Japanese, so Iwata may be saying something additional here which affects the meaning; and there is the possiblity that I mistranslated something.
The Wii U is completely HDCP-free when playing games, accessing the menu and even when playing Wii/ Wii Virtual Console software. I confirmed this using my Elgato Game Capture HD, which doesn't have an HDCP stripper.
This means any HDMI capture card can capture Wii U video even if it can't strip/crack HDCP protection (no promises about Netflix/non game content, those are often intended to use HDCP). Note that you can't record the Wii U gamepad's video using just a capture card on the Wii U's HDMI cable though, but you can record the TV screen's portion just fine.
Best Answer
Yes, the Wii U does in fact patch games if necessary, the Wii did too.
The thing about the Wii was that - just like with the 3DS - users would need to download patches manually, as if they were DLCs. One such patch was released for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.
The Wii U can patch games automatically. One such example would be Pikmin 3.