Android Device Manager now active, ready to help you find your lost or stolen phone

Last week, we told you about the Android Device Manager, a website that Google developed to help find lost or stolen Android handsets. The website is now live and ready to help save you a ton of heartache. Your missing phone will show up on a map and will also show you when it was last used. And if your worried about information falling into the wrong hands, your device can be remotely wiped.

There are even some tools for those who know that their Android phone is in the house somewhere, and has tried to escape along with the television remote and about 5 to 6 pairs of your socks. The difference is, using Device Manager, you can have your phone ring at full volume for as long as five minutes. We could see this being used as a form of torture, but we have to add that you probably have a great chance of finding your phone using this feature. And with the website, PIN numbers can be changed even if the phone is in the hands of some thief hundreds of miles away.

First thing you need to do is to install the Google Apps Device Policy app on your handset, a free download from the Google Play Store. Then you can register your phone with the service. There will be occasional check-ins. And while many of these features have been seen before for Android phones from security apps like Lookout, this is the first time that Google itself has offered this type of protection.

Recently, law-enforcement officials have requested that handset manufacturers come up with a remote kill switch in order to reduce the staggering high number of smartphone robberies that have afflicted major metropolitan areas like New York City and San Francisco. Those two cities have some of the most alarming theft rates in the nation for smartphones. While criminals used to exclusively target the Apple iPhone, the Samsung Galaxy S III and Samsung Galaxy S4 are now also being ripped off in record numbers. Samsung itself is now offering LoJack for the Samsung Galaxy S4.


source: AndroidDeviceManager via SlashGear