troll

Updated throughout with comments from co-founder Peter Kazanjy

A new site called Unvarnished launched in beta today, and aims to do for individual people what Yelp does for restaurants and local businesses: let anyone create a profile about you and then post "reviews" about your job performance, management style, reputation, behavioral quirks, and so on. Or, put another way, it'll let co-workers or relative strangers subject you to anonymous and potentially defamatory attacks that are completely outside your control, can't be removed or edited, and are ripe for abuse. So, that sounds like a super idea. … Read more

Sick of waiting for an Apple tablet? Tired of watching Windows 7 users show off their multitouch touch-screen programs? Well, Troll Touch is here to save the day, though you'd better be ready with a big wad of cash.

The Valencia, Calif.-based company sells resistive touch screens that can be installed on select Apple products and Dell monitors. These devices slip over the existing panels and connect to the machines via a USB port to impart some multitouch love. For those who prefer a complete package, Troll Touch also sells machines with a touch screen already installed.

The … Read more

Troll is a basic fantasy game in which the player, acting as the troll, defends helpless villages from an onslaught of Orcs. Despite the game's unsophisticated graphics and basic tasks, we found it surprisingly addictive.

The publisher's description of Troll promises "a beautiful fantasy adventure," but we wouldn't go that far. The graphics are basic and a bit silly. Users choose a village from a map and are then taken to the playing area, which was more or less the same in each level we tried; in the foreground, the village, in the background, the … Read more

Just how valuable are the Linux-related patents that Microsoft recently sold?

The Open Invention Network (OIN), a patent defense coalition for Linux whose members include IBM and Red Hat, trumpeted the news that it had bought 22 Linux-related patents from Allied Security Trust (AST) in a bid to protect Linux. Microsoft, which sold the patents to AST, claims the patents "weren't important," as noted in The Wall Street Journal.

Did the OIN get value or garbage?

Microsoft has long presented itself as the looming patent threat to Linux, once claiming that 235 of its patents are violated … Read more

Updated 3:15 p.m. PDT April 14 with Amazon saying the problem has been fixed and 2:15 p.m. with insider saying it was manual error by Amazon worker in France and 9:45 a.m. with background on Weev and comment from sources who say he is most likely not involved in the Amazon incident.

Amazon got blasted by gay rights groups this weekend after gay and lesbian book titles were delisted from its site. Was it an internal glitch, as Amazon claims, or is an Internet troll with a vendetta responsible?

Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith told … Read more

In technology, the best indication that you've "arrived" as a company is when you get hit by a patent infringement suit. By this measure, Red Hat, which was just hit by a patent-infringement suit from little-known Software Tree, is ready to join an elite circle of premier software vendors like IBM, Microsoft, and HP, each of which spends a lot of time and money defending against patent lawsuits.

Congratulations, Red Hat. Doesn't it feel great?

This isn't, of course, the first lawsuit that Red Hat has faced. Firestar, IP Innovation, and DataTern have also launched lawsuits against Red Hat, … Read more

When I negotiate contracts with customers, intellectual-property indemnification is always the top legal concern. Always.

But it's not because of Microsoft and its recent TomTom patent lawsuit, or other such infringement suits between vendors. The concern is almost wholly related to patent trolls, and predominately because they have no vested interest in keeping customers happy, whereas vendors must...vend, and so can't afford to unduly upset customers.

Hence, while the open-source world is up in arms about Microsoft's TomTom patent suit, it should be far more worried about news that Intellectual Ventures has grabbed another 500 patents … Read more

Ina Fried of CNET News reports Tuesday on Microsoft's 10,000th patent, with Microsoft's chief patent counsel calling the milestone "a testament to all of the innovation that has been taking place."

Maybe. But innovation is what hasn't actually done Microsoft much good, at least as measured in terms of new product lines that generate material amounts of revenue for the company. It still gathers the vast majority of its revenue from Windows and Office, two product lines that have only incrementally improved (or, in the case of Vista, degenerated) over the past decade or … Read more

Correction: The article inadvertently states that RPX has raised $40 million in venture capital funds. This is incorrect. A spokesperson contacted the author to note that a correct reading of the website would be that "The company has acquired more than $40 million in patent rights since its founding."

Patent trolls are the bane of existence for technology companies. Patent trolls buy up patents so that they can extort money from companies that actually build and sell products. The world's largest patent troll is arguably Intellectual Ventures, which holds billions of dollars worth of patents.

It is … Read more