We May See Gadgets That Self Destruct When Stolen

We will no longer need to worry too much about leaving our gadgets around hoping they won’t get stolen. Hopefully, at least. Suppose your phone got stolen and you really wish there was a way to destroy the information, leaving the theif with no stolen item and your information protected (assuming the stolen phone isn’t the recalled Samsung Galaxy Note 7). According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, researchers from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have been working on something new to help aid in the self destructing gadgets.

Gadgets would be fitted with a self destructing unit built with a polymer that can be remotely set off that crumples the device’s chips by expanding the polymer. Some of us often wonder what would happen to our devices when they go missing. Many times, they may be returned to a lost and found or kept on and charged in case the owner were to call to retrieve the phone, but in the event that the holder of the phone has some malintent they can possibly have access to all of the photos, text messages, addresses, and even saved passwords in the memo pad (which is highly unrecommended). Of course, this won’t be the general market at first. The product will be used primarily for those who need their information protected like companies, banks, government agencies, etc. So, we probably won’t see them in our friends’ pockets anytime soon.