PATENT TROLL 專利怪獸

字彙

a shot
a preemptive move
a patent troll
have not given the ghost up
would have been better off 
Desperate times call for desperate measures.


文句

Will a shot of Android be enough to save BlackBerry?

Believe it or not, it wasn't that long ago that Nokia and BlackBerry were the top two smartphone companies. Indeed, in 2006, in a preemptive move against the NTP patent troll, the Department of Justice asked that BlackBerry's services be kept going even if NTP won their case. Seven years later most of us are just wondering how long the company can stay alive.

BlackBerry hasn't given the ghost up yet. Besides finding a new CEO, BlackBerry is embracing Android apps.

In a technical blog posting, BlackBerry announced that its "Android Runtime team [is] bringing many new improvements to the runtime, such as support for Jelly Bean 4.2.2, hardware acceleration and performance updates."

Specifically, BlackBerry 10.2.1 — the next release of the BlackBerry operating system — will include the following features:

* Android native support:

* Bluetooth:

* MapView v1:

* Share Framework:

* Spellcheck:

Maybe BlackBerry would have been better off if they had just embraced Android when it became clear that Android was going to be the most popular mobile operating system in the world. It's too late to cry about that now.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. While it's too late to dump BlackBerry OS for Android, maybe a dose of Android apps is what BlackBerry needs to reclaim the number three mobile operating system spot. BlackBerry may never be a giant again, but with some Android it may at least survive for another decade.

（原文請閱讀）


解釋

a shot  打一針。指安卓 Android 程式可以在黑莓機上運作是一劑救命針。

a preemptive move  先發制人的行動

a patent troll  專利怪獸。"troll" 是北歐神話中的山精，這裡是指靠專利官司拿到利益或金錢的公司。文中的怪獸大概是指這家 NTP (網路時間協定，Network Time Protocol) 公司，黑莓機公司因為侵權訴訟，付給這家公司六億美金 (US$ 612.5 M)。

have not given the ghost up  壽終正寢。這裡的 "ghost" 指的是靈魂。

would have been better off  if they had just embraced Android... 假如它（黑莓機）當時擁抱安卓系統，或許現在會比較好。 文法上，這裡是過去假設句：...would have + pp.(分詞）~ if ... had + pp.。常用在 "後悔" 或 "悔不當初" 的意境。

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  非常時期便需要非常手段。