Google Gives Refunds And $5 Credit To Users Who Bought ‘Virus Shield’ App

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About a week back we reported about a popular application on the Google Play Store which was actually a scam. Called “Virus Shield,” it cruised to the top of the Play Store lists in under a fortnight. It claimed to protect users’ personal information from “harmful viruses, malware and spyware.” It even claimed to “improve the speed of your phone” and touted ad-blocking capabilities. The app cost $3.99 and did nothing more than changing a red “X” to a red “check” graphic.

When word about this fake application spread Google quickly removed it from the Play Store. It has now issued refunds to all those Android users who were tricked into purchasing Virus Shield. Customers should expect to see the funds returned to their account within the next 14 days.

Seems like Google really wants to make amends for letting this app through. It is even offering $5 worth of promotional credit which can be used to purchase any kind of digital content from the Play Store, including but not limited to movies, music, books and applications.

Developers gaming the system is nothing new. Purchased reviews and downloads can push any application to the top of the lists, thus tricking legitimate Android users into buying an app that is actually useless. Good on Google for trying to make amends.

Google Gives Refunds And $5 Credit To Users Who Bought ‘Virus Shield’ App

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Cellphones, ,

Nokia’s Phone Division Will Be Named Microsoft Mobile

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Back in September last year Nokia announced its intention to sell its devices and services business to Microsoft. Since then the deal has had to go through several regulatory hoops, and barring a couple of minor hiccups, it has sailed through federal regulators as well as Nokia’s shareholders. Microsoft expects to close the deal later this month. Nokia’s phone business will thus be renamed. While Redmond hasn’t made an official announcement as yet, an email sent by the company to suppliers reveals that Nokia’s phone division will be renamed Microsoft Mobile Oy. (Oy is Finland’s equivalent of Ltd.)

The division, Microsoft Mobile, will stay in Finland as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microsoft. Official business address will be changed from Nokia HQ on Keilalahdentie to Keilaranta in Espoo. Apart from the change in legal address another change after close of the transaction would be the removal of Nokia’s logo from purchase orders.

Since Microsoft assumes all rights, benefits and obligations of Nokia’s devices and services business, including its agreements with suppliers and partners, Redmond will continue to do business with them. The company tells suppliers that they can also continue to do business with Nokia, for example on Advanced Technologies, NSN and HERE Maps, for which the Finnish company will communicate with them separately.

Nokia’s Phone Division Will Be Named Microsoft Mobile

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in General, , ,

Google Trends Gets Email Subscriptions

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Google Trends is a great tool to find out what people are searching for on the internet. It allows you to keep an eye on hot searches in real time or even go as far back as 2004 to gauge historical trends. This information comes in handy when you’re a business owner trying to find out what people are saying about your brand, or if you’re a student researching a topic for class. The possibilities are endless, but it does require some work. Google has added a new feature into Trends which will make it easier to get the right insights at the right time with email subscriptions.

You now have the ability to subscribe to any search topic on Google Trends as well as Hot Searches for any country and even the monthly chart of top searches in the U.S. It is possible to adjust how subscription emails are sent to your inbox, frequency rates for Hot Searches are once a day, once a week or “as-it-happens.” Emails about individual search topics can be limited to once a week or once a month.

One might think that this new feature sounds a lot like Google Alerts, a notification service that the company launched in 2007. It sends email alerts when certain phrases or terms appear online. There has been speculation that Google Alerts may be shut down, but seeing as how the company did a major overhaul of Alerts back in January, it would be unusual for it to kill the service soon after that.

Google Trends Gets Email Subscriptions

, original content from Ubergizmo, Filed in Web, ,

The Not-So-Secret Language Of The Misfit Shine

misfit shine packaging Here’s a random tidbit about the Misfit Shine, the activity tracking device from Misfit Wearables.

I ran into CEO Sonny Vu about a week ago, and when he pulled a Misfit Shine out of his bag, he pointed out something that no one seems to have noticed. Or if they noticed it, they didn’t say anything about it online. Read More

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker Link Nendoroid Action Figure: The Squeal Maker

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker stands out among other Zelda games for its distinctive art style, an anime-infused aesthetic that made Link as cute as a button. If you want to stare at him all day, get this Nendoroid Link action figure.

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Good Smile Company’s action figure comes with equally tiny replicas of the Hero’s Sword, Hero’s Shield, Heart Container and the Wind Waker itself. It also comes with four heads, each with a different expression: smiling, nervous, serious and angry.

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Lock on to your browser and head to Good Smile’s online shop to pre-order the action figure. It costs ¥4,000 (~$39 USD) and will be released this August.

[via GeekTyrant]

Think You Know Basic Physics? This Balloon Will Prove You Wrong

When you have a balloon floating in a car and start driving, instead of getting thrown back, it actually flies forward. What? Are balloons immune to inertia? Is physics broken? Nope. As SmarterEveryDay explains, it actually makes perfect sense, as science always does.

Read more…




Gadget Rewind 2006: Lego Mindstorms NXT

It’s our 10th birthday, and to celebrate we’ll be revisiting some of the key devices of the last decade. So please be kind, rewind.

Lego, the popular toy brick maker, graduated from simple plastic playthings in 1998 when it released its Mindstorms…

This Faucet Sprayer’s Flat Blade of Water Scrapes Dishes Clean

This Faucet Sprayer's Flat Blade of Water Scrapes Dishes Clean

If you’re lucky enough to have a retractable sprayer attached to your kitchen faucet, you’ve probably noticed that its circular blast often isn’t powerful enough to really scrape dishes clean. To fix that, Kohler is introducing what it calls Sweep spray technology that blasts stuck-on food with a wide blade of water that works like a liquid scraper.

Read more…




Famicom Pin Badge Collection: Gotta Cart ‘Em All

While looking at the Star Soldius t-shirt, I stumbled upon another homage to classic video games, and from a Japanese artist as well. It’s a collection of Famicom cartridge pin badges.

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Ketchuparts’ collection will consist of 15 pin badges. I’m not entirely certain, but I think they’re based on Famicom launch games.

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Each pin badge costs ¥800 (~$8 USD). Press your browser firmly into your computer and head to Ketchuparts’ online shop, Meteor or Frog Port to get the pins. It seems like Ketchuparts has yet to release all the pin badges so keep checking back on those stores if you want to get them all.

The 3D Printing Landfill Of Opportunity

3D printing waste There are lots of reasons to love 3D printing. It democratizes manufacturing, putting consumers in granular control of the things they own — rather than requiring them to choose from a finite pre-made selection. However there’s a flip-side to this freedom. The detritus that will inevitably be created simply because it’s possible to print a physical object at the click of a button. Read More