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Phone Thief Busted, Thanks to Lookout Android App!

It can be very fulfilling to be able to acquire the latest gadgets; the down side is that there will always be people out there who would like to get these pretty things as well, and they intend to acquire it from you – for free. One of the most popular targets – and the easiest ones to get – are smart phones.

lookout app The good news is that the term “smart phone” is more than just a name. These gadgets are built smart enough to be equipped with apps that will help protect them from unwanted intruders. It is either that, or burglars simply are not as cunning and as smart as they ought to be to actually pull a robbery off.

A case that has been making the rounds of blogs recently is the story of a stolen Motorola Droid in Oregon. A man reported that his house had been broken into. Among the list of stolen items were his laptop and his Motorola Droid – gadgets that can be easily resold as they are things that some people would not think twice about when given the chance to acquire them at a bargain.

The burglar apparently decided that, what the heck, I have the phone, maybe I should have fun with it for a while before disposing of it. Or maybe he really did want the Motorola Droid for himself. At any rate, have a little fun with it he did, taking a few photos of himself; I mean, isn’t that something that is not surprising for someone with a camera in his or her phone to do?

What he did not know about the Droid he stole was that the original owner had installed an application called Lookout. The Android app can help the actual owner locate stolen phones on the map – as well as uploads and backs-up recently taken images and media.

When the owner logged on to his account, he found recent photos that he had not taken – among them photos of the thief. He then turned the images over to the police who used them to identify the suspect. Busted!

Lookout was developed by Felxilis. Aside from the features already mentioned, the app also secures the device from hackers, allows users to wipe data from their phone and make the device sound an alarm to alert nearby authorities about the stolen phone.