Google, one for two

[calimac]

In mysteries solved.

1. News article recently about a man whose smartphone was stolen along with his other valuables from his car, so he called the cops and used a "find my phone" app to make the thing ring as the perp walked right past the cops. What was not clear to me was what he used the app on. His phone was stolen! Did he just happen to have the app on some other device that wasn't stolen? Did he borrow a device from the cops, or from J. Random Stranger, and did the app already have to be on it? I asked that question in comments, and was told I was a fogey who should just Google it. So I did, and it didn't answer the question. From the descriptions of these apps, it sounds like you put them on the device that might be stolen. But then how do you access the app when you actually need it?

2. On the other hand, I successfully Googled a non-textual pop culture query. The only TV I watch these days is Daily Show clips on the web, so the only commercials I see are the ones preceding them. This means I get some ad-based jokes, but one of the current ads was itself a mystery. It's a Pepsi commercial in which a woman walks into a dance rehearsal hall, but in all the reflections she sees of herself in the mirrors, she's wearing different clothes. She dances with the reflections a bit, and then all the glass explodes. I got the feeling this was a reference to something I didn't get, but I couldn't figure out what. To my surprise, Googling "pepsi commercial dancer" Explained All, including who the woman was, and what was with the clothes. (Yes, I've heard of Beyoncé, but obviously I wouldn't recognize her if she passed me on the street. I don't know any of her songs, and all I know of her offhand is, "Isn't she the one who sang the national anthem at the last inauguration?")

Comments

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

What happens is the phone periodically reports its position up to the phone company's servers (in my case Apple's.) To locate the phone you log into the phone company's web site (from, say, a normal PC) and it retrieves the position for you. Yes, it's more than a little spooky that one's location is continuously tracked...

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

That is one way they work (through the phone company), but I think all that's needed is for the app to report location data to some entity that gives you a way to contact the phone to make it ring, wipe the data, whatever.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

My first Google search says that you can use those "find apps" from any other cell phone or any web-enabled device. So my first thought would be to ask a passerby.

[anderyn.livejournal.com]

1. I have no idea about that app, either. It would seem that you should have to have SOME way of triggering it, via your computer, or something, wouldn't it?

2. Oh. Beyoncé, is it? I saw the commercial, and figured it was a singer/dancer in pop culture, but wasn't interested enough to actually look up which one. I did recognize that the clothes/dances were probably from other music videos, but that was about it.

[chorale.livejournal.com]

In the past, Beyoncé has had at least one different persona on one of her albums, named Sasha Fierce. One of the costumes in that Pepsi commercial may be a reference to that, but as I haven't seen the commercial, and do little to follow Beyoncé, I won't know for sure.

[mithriltabby]

The way it works on my Android devices is that I have to explicitly enable each device to report in to Google’s control panel, and then I can log in to that control panel from any web browser and tell it to either ring the device or do a remote wipe. Came in handy the other day when my Nexus 7 had slipped off the dresser and fallen behind the cat carrier.