Let’s say that you’re the keeper of a ton of extremely important pieces of information. It could be phone number, bank records, passwords, corporate secrets, or whatever. Then, out of nowhere, you lose your mobile or laptop, or – even worse – it gets stolen. That kind of thing can make you paranoid, drive you crazy, and likely get you fired (especially if your data was compromised).
There’s a new technology brewing up that should be able to take that kind of worry and vulnerability away from you forever. It’s a new self-destruct mechanism being designed by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. Supposedly, it works lightning-fast, and can be placed on almost every device.
It works like this: there’s an expandable polymer that will “crumple” the chips in a device within seconds. When the thing is triggered, heater electrodes are activated using the battery as their power source. When heated to 176-degrees, that same polymer will grow up to seven-times its size, and will destroy the silicon chip. The trigger can be a simple as a GPS signal if the item is removed from the building, or a password for remote detonation. The cost of this little handy item shouldn’t be more than 15-bucks, but please be sure you’ve got that info backed up before firing this little thing off. Cuz fried, is fried.
Source: ZDNet