It’s gettin’ hard out here for a car jacker, folks. It used to be that you just roll up, knock on a window, be threatening in one way or another, and bam — you’ve got a new and totally unearned ride.
Nowadays, though, you’ve got all this new fangled technology to worry about. Lojack. OnStar. Oh, you didn’t notice the smartphone sitting in the cupholder? Enjoy county lockdown, bub. Such is the case for one lucky gent, who was able to send cops to his car less than 10 minutes after it was jacked, thanks to an app running on his Android phone.
The story, in tl;dr form: guy runs to the store for some snackage, steps out of the car, and gets pounced on by a car jacker. The downside: his car is now speeding off into the distance. The upside: as luck may have it, he has his laptop with him and an Android phone running Lookout sitting in the car.
Lookout, primarily an antivirus/backup application, also happens to double as a phone finding tool by enabling you to ping the handset for its GPS coordinates from any browser. Mr. Carless runs inside, pops onto WiFi, rings up the cops with his story and the current location of the car — just like that, the Would-be-jacker is in cuffs within the hour.
We’re living in the future, friends.
[Via ABC7. Thanks Daniel!]