Items tagged with kill switch

Dirty rotten laptop thieves may want to consider another way to make a quick buck, as there are forces in play that will hopefully render this business model obsolete. Intel has teamed up with Impinj, Technology Solutions UK Ltd. (TSL), and Burnside Digital to create an RFID solution called Wireless Credential... Read more...
Mere weeks after voting down legislation that would require smartphone makers to implement anti-theft technology into handsets, the California Senate on Thursday passed a revised version of the bill. As rewritten, technology titans Apple and Microsoft, both with vested interest in such a bill, withdrew opposition to... Read more...
You may have only paid $50 for your smartphone on subsidy, or even received it for free after inking a two-year service agreement with your wireless carrier. It's actually worth much more than what you bought it for -- several hundred dollars more -- making these easily swiped handsets mighty attractive to thieves... Read more...
Sure, you may have only payed $50 for your smartphone, or even picked it up for free after agreeing to a two-year service agreement with a wireless carrier, but the true value is much higher than whatever subsidized price you paid. That's something you'll quickly find out if it's ever lost or, worse yet, ends up... Read more...
Heads-up: Apple isn’t the only one implementing remote kill switches for applications in their phones. According to recent reports, the Android platform has one, too. The thing is: At least Google owns up to it up front (instead of allowing a developer to discover it like Apple did) by including a mention in the Android Market terms of service,... Read more...
It was a little, tiny, tiny addendum at the end of a WSJ article, but it was there: in an interview with the WSJ, Steve Jobs confirmed that the suspected iPhone "kill switch" does indeed exist.  Of course, for investors, talk of the App Store downloads are probably more exciting, and Jobs detailed that as well:If sales stay at the current... Read more...
First: there's no real evidence this is a "kill switch" that Apple will use, but still, based on Apple's protectiveness over the iPhone, it wouldn't surprise us.Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the upcoming book iPhone Forensics, has revealed an URL that he suggests Apple is using to keep a list of any "offending" applications:... Read more...