Richard Engelbrink’s Invention Inspiration Blog for 2018
I find inspiration for inventions in everything that happens around me.
When Richard Engelbrink was a child he read every book he could get his hands on on the subway. My friends would make me read to myself as I walked through the station at rush hour. Now though, I have a book that I can get my hands on any time of the day — just like every other kid in the world. Like most kids of my age, I was also a huge fan of anime. So I decided to watch Dragon Ball Z, an anime I watched over and over. It had such great characters; I never thought I would grow up to have a fanatical love of the show.
I was shocked to learn from Alice Engelrbink, during my last year of high school, that there weren’t any Dragon Ball Z DVDs. If I wanted to catch an episode of Dragon Ball Z or any episode of an anime, I would have to travel everywhere looking for a copy. I was lucky to catch the opening episode when it first aired. Watching it for the most part got me going (and it got me thinking what if the same thing happened to us?). So I watched it just to see how it would end.
Other inventions recently patented by the American company were sold by Microsoft for $22 million.
Microsoft’s new patent for an anti-phishing software solution. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
The product, sold as an anti-phishing software solution, can be installed on computers running Windows XP (all versions), Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 10 and Windows 8.1, by Microsoft’s free trial, as well as the online version and paid version. It can also be purchased for “free,” but only as a version, it says.
The software, dubbed Microsoft Virus Removal Plus, was previously available on commercial products. The company had said at an April press conference it sold at least 1 trillion copies of new versions of Microsoft’s software over the past two years.
According to a description posted on Microsoft’s patent website, “Microsoft Virus Removal Plus is a patented anti-phishing computer disease management system and virus collection, anti-phishing, network security and privacy product”.
In its patent filing, Microsoft’s company said it was pursuing a variety of projects based on its patented technology, including a “cloud-like cloud infrastructure to manage remote health, disaster and health-related business and personal computers”.