Find your phone thief

Jan 21, 2013 - Akshit Goyal

Some days are just bad days. After spending thousands of rupees on your flaunt-worthy smartphone or tablet, one careless mistake could be enough to be all it takes for a thief to be on his way with your prized possession. But, thanks to the tech already embedded in your device — be it your camera, GPS chip or location-aware WiFi capabilities — you can not only locate your phone, but capture a photo of your thief in an effort to get it back. No insurance fee is involved.

With a platform-independent software like Prey, this is now a real world scenario. Prey works on iOS, Android and soon on Windows Phone 8. Prey works by taking photos using your phone’s front-facing camera, and uploading them to a Dropbox account, mailing them over, or sending it via a message. Along with this, it provides extensive location-based support where you can track your phone whenever it connects to a mobile network or WiFi connection. All of this also comes with support for making the app and service completely hidden in the device, so that the thief can’t tell immediately if you have that kind of protection.
Prey is great, and works well on the field. And it’s free. Once you track your phone and have those photos, you can ask the police to track the person in question, and have them retrieve your phone. Go to preyproject.com.

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