Mike Murphy

Apple Arcade’s new secret sauce

This week in Protocol Gaming, your weekly guide to the business of video games: Apple Arcade introduces a back catalog, Ubisoft has a new head of HR and how hands might evolve for gaming controllers (yikes). (Was this email forwarded to you?…

Apple wants to make phones work underwater

Hello and welcome to the last edition of the Big Tech patent roundup! Sadly as you read this, I'll have moved on from Protocol, but I couldn't head out without doing one more patent roundup. It just didn't feel right. So this is a bumper issue, with…

Can anything stop tech companies from working with will.i.am?

What is it about the Black Eyed Peas frontman? Falling somewhere along the same spectrum that Shingy and Ashton Kutcher occupy, will.i.am seems to be one of those soothsayers who does more saying than soothing. But his presence in tech, somehow,…

Is the future of housing hiding in a smartphone app?

Bill Smith, who previously founded Shipt, which he sold to Target in 2017, founded Landing in 2020. The idea behind Landing is pretty simple: Create a system that would allow people to move between apartments as they'd like. Not long before Landing…

Anduril buys drone company Area-I

The bill is intended to weed out the use of tools that enable already unlawful employment discrimination in New York City. If signed into law, it will require providers of automated employment decision tools to have those systems evaluated each year…

The pandemic changed restaurants. They'll never look the same again.

Shelter-in-place forced a nearly overnight transformation of the restaurant industry as businesses struggled to find a way to survive this pandemic. But at some point, hopefully soon, we won't all have to remain six feet apart anymore, and people…

Can consoles overcome the chip shortage?

This week in Protocol Gaming, your weekly guide to the business of video games: chip shortages still plague console sales, iOS games keep taking up more room and Amazon is gamifying the warehouse. (Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe…

Alphabet wants to build a wearable full of needles

Congratulations to making it through one full year of lockdown — and just about one year of these Big Tech patent roundups! While there is some light at the end of the tunnel of this pandemic and we might be able to leave the house soon, these…

Nintendo's big bet on nostalgia

The Big Story Four years feels like a lifetime these days. In the world of gaming, it's that long, to the week, since the Nintendo Switch was first released. It also happens that Nintendo just celebrated big anniversaries for its Pokémon, Mario and…

Hotels had to adapt to survive. Will those changes stick?

Pre-pandemic, many would've said they felt like they lived on the road. Staying at hotels for sales trips, work retreats, pitches — not to mention hoarding loyalty points for vacation trips — was the norm. Hotels were homes away from home. For the…

The future of retail is hiding in an abandoned mall

The warehouse is moving closer to customers' houses as ecommerce eats the world of retail.

Google wants to help you get a life

Another week has come to pass, meaning it's time again for Big Tech patents! You've hopefully been busy reading all the new Manual Series stories that have come out this week and are now looking forward to hearing what comes after what comes next.…

Blockchain, QR codes and your phone: the race to build vaccine passports

There was a time, not too long ago, where the only people who knew how to use Zoom were those who spent their days going from meeting to meeting. Then the pandemic struck, and everyone and their mother had to get up to speed on enterprise-grade…

Blockchain, QR codes and your phone: the race to build vaccine passports

There will come a time, hopefully in the near future, when you'll feel comfortable getting on a plane again. You might even stop at the lounge at the airport, head to the regional office when you land and maybe even see a concert that evening. This…

Alphabet wants you to eat balloons instead of dieting

It's the end of another long month week in lockdown, and if you're in the U.S., you're probably not going anywhere this weekend. So sit back and enjoy the latest zany patents from Big Tech, including headphones that allow you to have conversations in…

Microsoft wants to deliver to your car with drones

Congratulations on making it to the end of another week that felt like a month. Hopefully you can now use this day to kick back, relax and enjoy reading about some of the zaniest patents that Big Tech was awarded this week. And perhaps because it's a…

Google wants to connect everything you own to the internet

Hello and welcome back to the world of zany patents from Big Tech! While 2020 is still dragging on (I know it's 2021, but you can't tell me 2020 is over until I can go anywhere other than the grocery store), at least there are still great new patents…

Ford is partnering with Google to bring its cars into the modern era

Ford will now use Google Cloud, and future cars will include the Play Store.

Microsoft wants to turn your shirt into a computer

Welcome to the end another week in the longest January of all time! At least that means another patent roundup is headed your way. As ever, Big Tech had some great ones this week, ranging from the truly mad, like Microsoft computerizing fabrics, to…

Tractors won't be fully autonomous anytime soon — but not because they can't be

Have you ever had a 43,000-pound tractor drive over your head at full speed? As part of the all-digital festivities of this year's CES, John Deere seeded VR headsets to reporters to show off that much of what the company invests its time in these…