Bad app-le – Someone get us a catapult and some disgruntled fowl, we want to fire them at this Latvian firm that was publishing fake editions of Angry Birds and
Cut the Rope
which allowed it to send hidden premium texts to anyone who downloaded them. Happily, the firm has now been fined £50,000 and ordered to refund all the people caught out by the scam. [
]
Wooooay, football – Football's still going, apparently. The second test for Hawk-Eye's goal line tech is set to be England v Belgium on June 2, thus providing one more thing to blame when England doesn't win things. [FIFA]
What up Barack? - All you've got to do to get a call from the president is launch your own privately-funded space program. Sadly for Elon Musk said "Caller ID was blocked, so at first I thought it was a telemarketer." If it hadn't have been blocked it'd have flashed up "B-DAWG Calling", presumably. [TNW]
Dark matters – It seems there was some question mark over whether or not dark matter exists. Apparently it does. As you were. [New Scientist]
Get lost – Twitter won't tweet any two-word tweet starting with the word 'get' on account of it once being an SMS service. Not much good if you're in a hostage situation, risking your life to tweet and all you've got time to type is 'Get help'. We'd probably all ignore that anyway though so… no biggie. [Buzzfeed]
Where did dogs come from? – The eternal question. No one seems to know. And if you said WOLVES then QI KLAXON. [Ars Technica]
Like Mike - Google's shopping spree not only saw it picking up Motorola Mobility but also design studio Mike and Maaike, which worked on the first Android phone (the much-loved G1) as well as the Xbox 360. Controversial. [TNW]
Fashion - If you buy this R2D2 hoodie, you're only allowed to communicate in beeps and boops while wearing it. And maybe by projecting holograms. But that's really it. [Gizmodo UK]
Yes mate - One way to impress a person you quite fancy is this: on your first date, whip out your smartphone and fire up the new Poundland app. Guaranteed success. Plus, y'know, bargains. [Poundland]
Marvel-lous – Gorgeous 4-year-old Anthony Smith woke up one day and told his mum he wouldn't wear his hearing aid because superheroes don't wear hearing aids. Gorgeous Marvel was having none of that: when Anthony's mum emailed for help finding a hearing-impaired superhero, not only did Marvel respond with news of Hawkeye who lost 80% of his hearing, but it also created a whole new superhero named Blue Ear named after Anthony's hearing aid. Gorgeous. [Fox]
