Philippe Matthews Show Guru Advice, Author Reviews, Tech Reviews, Entertainment News

Law & Order: Intellectual Property Unit. We're gonna spider, parse, and scan like it's 1998, when Lycos acquired patents that could cost Google hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties. To understand the patent mess that is gripping Silicon Valley right now, you need to travel across the country to a dark-paneled federal courtroom in Norfolk, Virginia, just down the block from Bob's Gun Shop.

The wind tosses Gaby Nava's hair as the small fishing boat skims across the glassy water just off the port of Veracruz, Mexico. She smiles at the shallow bay and the Gulf of Mexico sprawling across the horizon. "We are very lucky today.

Rogue waves, mechanical problems, bad weather. Not every cruise is perfect. And when things go wrong, passengers are sometimes surprised that they are no more likely to get a refund than if they went to the beach for a week and it rained every day.