Linked List: September 4, 2014

Thursday, 4 September 2014

Intellectual Ventures: Patent Troll Funds Startups, New Products ★

Ashlee Vance, reporting for Businessweek on Intellectual Ventures’ claim that it’s turning over a new leaf:

There’s no proof yet that IV has mastered that hard part of taking a product all the way to consumers and making it a hit. According to the power brokers in Silicon Valley, IV remains a company with a dark soul that’s using the startup talk as a ruse. “I’ll believe it when I see it and not before,” Thiel says of IV’s claimed transition to a product company.

Same here.

Apple Said to Negotiate Deep Payments Discounts From Big Banks ★

Ian Kar, writing for Bank Innovation:

According to Noyes, while banks control the card-present/not-present rates, the networks negotiate the rates with payments processors. The differences can be dramatic. Apple was apparently adamant about getting the card-present rates and told issuers that it would assume some of the fraud risk inherent in every transaction by providing a secure element via biometric authentication (its TouchID feature) and location data provided through an NFC chip. The Apple payments platform will work with all of their cards.

Apple seems to be playing on a different level sometimes.

Dan Kaminsky on the Implications of Underground Celebrity Photo Theft Rings ★

Dan Kaminsky:

There’s a peculiar property of much criminality in the real world: You notice. A burgled home is missing things, an assaulted body hurts. These crimes still occur, but we can start responding to them immediately. If there’s one thing to take away from this compromise, it’s that when it comes to information theft you might find out quickly, or you may never find out at all.

Terrific post.

Joan Rivers Dies at 81 ★

Some great examples of her wit and comedic daring in the NYT’s obituary:

On her husband’s suicide: “After Edgar killed himself, I went out to dinner with Melissa. I looked at the menu and said, ‘If Daddy were here to see these prices, he’d kill himself all over again.’”

Twitpic Is Shutting Down ★

Noah Everett, Twitpic CEO:

A few weeks ago Twitter contacted our legal demanding that we abandon our trademark application or risk losing access to their API. This came as a shock to us since Twitpic has been around since early 2008, and our trademark application has been in the USPTO since 2009. […]

Unfortunately we do not have the resources to fend off a large company like Twitter to maintain our mark which we believe whole heartedly is rightfully ours. Therefore, we have decided to shut down Twitpic.

Why not just change the name to something original?

Apple Announces Live Video Stream for Tuesday’s Event ★

I wonder how the viewership numbers for these events compares to major TV shows?

Ikea: Experience the Power of a Book Book ★

The gag here is sort of the inverse of this classic bit.