October 15, 2007 8:20 AM PDT

Track a thief from Asia to the U.S.

Posted by Darius Chang

(Credit: Crave Asia)

Like a really good reality show, the size of consumer devices has been dwindling to almost nothing. Notebooks morphing into UMPCs, prosumer cameras to point-and-shoot form factors, and even the PSP has undergone the slimming treatment. But portability brings along its own risks.

Enter theft recovery services. Bak2u, a Singapore-based company specializing in retrieving lost/stolen laptops, PDAs and mobile phones, can help you if the incident happened locally, but is hapless if the device is taken out of country. This is because such services depend on local law enforcement cooperation to work and this courtesy may not extend to other states.

Hence, its partnership with GadgetTrak, another theft recovery service based in the United States. Through this, they will have access to each other's recovery services and will be able to track devices within their respective zones. Mobile phones with Bak2u software installed will call to a predefined number when in use once the company is informed that the device is stolen. Other electronic items can deploy an identification label which allows the (honest) finder to return the item.

(Source: Crave Asia)