As far as I can tell, one of those patents (http://www.google.com/patents/about/5946647_System_and_method_for_performing.html?id=aFEWAAAAEBAJ) is about 'detecting structures in data and presenting the user with the ability to perform actions on a structure'.

This can be anything from a hyperlink that you can click (a grammar detects a pattern, a link tag, and presents the user with an interface (right mouse button) to perform actions (opening the link, or bookmarking it) on the structure) to a phone number you can dial from the screen or even all those online ads highlighting words in the text of a webpage.

The only specific feature is that this implementation uses a 'analyzer server' to process the data. But since it is not specified what that is, it can be anything running on the device.

I am sure there must be some prior art to that patent ;)

Why is Pluto in for another demotion? It still fits the proposed Dwarf Planet description, right?

Why mention "Ruby" so explicitly? It appears that you just had bad luck hiring a overzealous developer not capable of writing good enough software precisely fit for the problem, with the best tools for the job.

You'll find these guys in every type of language or programming paradigm...

That's true, although I think (no hard data though) a large portion of account theft happens through social engineering.

Malware on consoles is a lot less common, so this could at least rule out a significant portion of abuse without bothering users too much. To abuse a gamers account, malware would need to be installed on the console, and be able to login to the game and abuse your account data there, all from the console that the (activated) controller is paired with, while it is turned on, possibly without the player noticing. I never heard of such sophisticated malware for consoles, but it could happen, obviously.

Not as secure as the Blizzard Authenticator (which I use and works great!), but perhaps good enough to prevent password theft.