Asian Mystery: UC Service App By LG On Android Market – What Is It?

by Rob Jackson on February 19th, 2010 at 2:13 am

Right before finding Google Shopper on Android Market I passed an application by LG that was just launched called UC Service. It had no icon, less than 50 downloads, and the description was “Can use Universal Communicator Service”. I downloaded it, opened it up and it was simply a black screen with several buttons featuring Asian text of some sort.

uc

I pressed one and a in the upper left of my status bar was a “UC” icon that measured a signal of some sort. I had/have 4 bars. Here is a quick video for anyone interested in seeing a bit more of the mystery (at least to an uno-lingual person):

I decided to do the Google Shopper hands-on and come back to this. During the video I mentioned Google Goggles and thought about how the PERFECT investigational tool already existed – too bad not for the public. I did a some Googling and didn’t come up with much but here are some tidbits:

  • #1 result for “Universal Communicator Service” is a Wired.com article from 2008 talking about VoxOx who provide, “free VoIP, video chat, SMS, file sharing, fax and IM/social network/e-mail aggregation for both Macs ad PCs”. The article also mentions it is similar to Skype (VoxOx that is).
  • The UC status bar icon wasn’t anything I’ve seen on any status icon list that I could find
  • This is the ONLY application from this developer on Android Market
  • The developer phone number is (812) 369-8383 which is Madison, Indiana. LG Electronics has shop set up in Louisville, Kentucky which is only 1 hour away. Hmmmm.
  • Developer website listed as http://www.lge.com – obviously the official LG website
  • Developer E-Mail listed as uc.mcs.lg@gmail.com – turned up nothing
  • Package name: com.uc.ver1

I was in bed, about to go to sleep and felt the need to do TWO video reviews. My Sherlock and Watsoning glass is half empty so I leave you with this request: if you can read the text in the video can you translate it in the comments? I’m guessing it is a rather useless “test” application of some sort, but you never know – if you throw enough spaghetti at a wall, eventually some strands are going to stick!

  • http://www.treasuregrove.net Chris Liphart

    Interesting. It crashes on my Cliq when I hit the middle button. I’m very interested to see if someone can translate this…

  • Andrew

    I don’t know what the app’s functionality is, but translating, (starting from top left)
    [Refresh], [On], [Off], [Autorun], [Delete]
    CURRENT STATUS
    Scanning to null
    UC services that are availiable
    [Set Up],[Coupon Management]

  • CJ
  • http://4channer.blogspot.com lvlln

    Was going to post translation, but Andrew beat me to the punch. Perhaps someone living in Korea might have a better idea of what UC is. They use all sorts of unheard-of tech in their cellphones there.

  • Realist

    The language is korean, if anyone wondered.

  • 2FR35H

    I downloaded it to my phone only thing it allowed me to do was change my wifi on or off.

  • http://phandroud mike dalton

    Hey I called the # you listed in regards to the LG app that is in Korean and it just says that it is not a working # I don’t live gigatel from Madison IN if there is anything I can please let me know. Thanks.

  • barrangatan

    Love the review and the detective work.. great job. And just to be 100% clear Voxox has nothing to do with this app. I work for the company that makes Voxox, and I know for a fact that this isn’t our work (I’d be darn if it were.. what a terrible looking app).

  • Dennis

    What’s the last thing a redneck says before he dies ? … “What’s this button do ?”… Just saying …

  • MJ

    Translation:
    REFRESH, ON, OFF, AUTO RUN, DELETE
    CURRENT STATUS
    scanning to null
    AVAILABLE UC SERVICE
    SETTINGS, COUPON MANAGEMENT

    im still not sure what this app is for….:(

  • Kurt

    UC as an industry term usually means “Unified Communications” and encompasses IP Telephony, VoIP, IM, Presence enablement, etc.

    Some of those products do fixed mobile convergence allowing a person with a cell phone to leverage the carrier network when off site, but through a client, leverage a corporation’s PBX via communication through WiFi. This application could be a means to allow for that or to test the auto switching capability some devices have. Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft offer such services, usually in the form of a Smartphone client such as Cisco’s Unified Mobile COmmunicator, or even Microsofts moble Office COmmunicator.

    Not saying this is what it does, but it might provide a clue.

    The coupon management might also refer to a pay by the minute feature such as is used with Skype or other VoIP service.

  • Marvin

    You could extract the apk, open it up, pull out the classes.dex and baksmali it to look at what classes are written for the app and what calls it makes to the framework. That should give you a better clue as to what this app was written to do.

  • Eric M

    You might be wrong with the phone number

    (81) 23 698-383X

    Would be a phone number in Higashimurayama District of Yamagata, Japan. There are a lot of Koreans in Japan.

  • chris

    In order to run this app, at least, you need to have devices that have uc service like “one phone” by kt or “070″ service by LG currently being service in Korea.
    I haven’t heard these device can be hooked or forwarding onto android platform which installed this app.
    can anyone in korea having “one phone” or “070″ service verify this??? very curious.:-)

  • Benoitb

    I ask my Korean girlfriend to check about this, and UC is a kind of VoIP service in Korea, offered by the KT company.

    For the app itself, I don’t know what it exactly does. The 50 downloads are probably just R&D engineers in Korea.



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