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Google Cellphones

Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar 200

Posted by Soulskill from the remind-me-never-to-lend-my-phone-to-these-people dept.
theodp writes "A little over a year ago, an iPhone 4s prototype walked into a San Francisco bar, prompting a controversial manhunt by a now-deceased Apple investigator and the SFPD. Now, Wired reports that a Nexus 4 prototype walked into a San Francisco bar last month, prompting Google to sic its security team on 'Sudsy,' a San Francisco bartender who notified Google that he'd found their phone, which was slated to make its debut at a since-cancelled Android event on Oct. 29. When the 'Google Police' showed up at the bar, Sudsy's co-worker sent the 'desperate' Google investigator on a wild goose chase which landed him in an under-siege SFPD Station, from which he and Sudsy's lawyer had to be escorted out of under the watch of police in full riot gear with automatic weapons so the pair could arrange a 1 a.m. pickup of the phone."
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Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar More

Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar

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  • Really? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:17AM (#41795135)

    This is difficult to take seriously.

  • nope.. don't believe it!!

  • WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:25AM (#41795147)

    why wouldn't you just return the fucking property?

    why play hide and seek? why play games at all? just give them their property, FFS.

    • It says right there in the fucking article: "What was I supposed to do, look for the guy with Google shirt? How did I know this guy didn't work for Apple?"

      • Because obviously Apple would be monitoring Google's phone lines and sending ninja impersonators to intercept Google's business dealing.

        Whether TFA said that or not, how would that even work? You call Google. Google says they'll come to the place you're calling from. How likely is it that someone else is going to show up there, then, looking for the caller?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Fastolfe ( 1470 )

          I also rather suspect Google employees carry some sort of card that identifies them as a Google employee. Easy to forge? Perhaps, but probably sufficient for this purpose.

          • Yes, I have a whole pile of them. They're these little cardboard rectangles called "Business Cards".

            They also probably have google-issued smartcard ID's of some sort as well.

  • What is this fucking summary about? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:29AM (#41795155)
    It does not parse right in any of the 6 natural and about 12 computer languages I know well. Can someone translate?

    • Have you tried 'idiot'? I hear it almost sounds like English at times.

      I doubt it'll sound better in 'idiot', though, it sounds pretty absurd in English.

    • Re:What is this fucking summary about? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 91degrees ( 207121 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @07:26AM (#41795465) Journal
      It's in two layers! Layer one is a factual summary about a barman finding a lost Google prototype. Layer two is a veiled rant about companies overreacting when their trade secrets may be compromised.

      • But shouldn't we be worried about an under seige SFPD station? It's like that joke about the detergent being able to get the blood off the shirt...

    • Here you go:
      "Yon ti kras plis pase yon ane de sa, yon iPhone pwototip 4s mache nan yon San Francisco bar, sa ki pouse yon manhunt kontwovÃsyal pa yon kounye a-moun ki mouri anketà Apple ak SFPD la. Koulye a, Wired rapà ke yon Nexus 4 pwototip mache nan yon bar Francisco dÃnye San mwa, sa ki pouse Google nan sik ekip sekirite li a sou ', savoneuz' yon San Francisco Bartender ki avize Google ke li ta jwenn telefÃn yo, ki te chache fà okazyone li nan yon depi-anile evÃnman an

  • fdsfds (Score:5, Funny)

    by bmo ( 77928 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:29AM (#41795159)

    A lawyer, a priest, a rabbi, and a Nexus 4 prototype walked into a San Francisco bar ....

    --
    BMO

  • Yanno? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bieeanda ( 961632 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:36AM (#41795171)
    With a character named Sudsy and a police station 'under siege', this would make a better script for a story where Dick Tracy misplaces his wrist radio.

  • Just in case you're wondering about the riot cops (Score:5, Informative)

    by wonkey_monkey ( 2592601 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @05:38AM (#41795177) Homepage

    under the watch of police in full riot gear with automatic weapons

    This had nothing to do with the lost phone. Some punk got shot and people went nuts.

    • Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AlphaWolf_HK ( 692722 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @06:37AM (#41795345)

      I don't really get this either. The guy gets shot while he is in the act of brandishing a weapon against a police officer. Weapon turns out to be loaded and ready to fire. The guy doesn't even suffer any shots that would be otherwise lethal. Yet a riot forms and they spray paint killers on the walls of the police station?

      Weird city. I wonder if they'd prefer having no cops at all. I remember there was some group around Berkley demanding that the city get rid of its police officers, maybe these are them?

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SvnLyrBrto ( 62138 )

        The police in the bay area have become increasingly heavy-handed and more than a bit trigger-happy over the last few years. And the public has been responding by an increasing withdrawal of their trust and goodwill.

        Johannes Mehserle, and the pittance of a slap on the wrist "punishment" for his murder of Oscar Grant*, for example, probably set relations between the police and the black community back by a good decade or so alone. Then, for an encore, they went about gunning down a mentally ill homeless man

  • prompting Google to I know this is grammatically wrong but it's like that in the source its security team on 'Sudsy,'

    That doesn't make any sense at all, even by theo's standards.

  • Also in the news (Score:5, Funny)

    by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @07:32AM (#41795489)

    An Apple spokesperson immediately commented on the incident.

    "I have to inform Google that we will sue for a billion dollars. We have already patented the marketing trick of "losing" phones. We got prior art, dammit!"

  • Can't they find new ways to create hype? The should have seen through this and just smashed it and put it in the bin.

  • And that is quite a mark for /.

    The police station was "under-siege" (in reality just some protesters and vandals in front of it) for something totally unrelated to the phone (if it is not related to the news, why post it?). And why in the world is relevant that the Apple investigator is now dead? Maybe are they suggesting that Steve Jobs killed him to cover something?

    Future posts I suggest to the /. editors

    • Bloody dictator X uses a Windows 8 tablet.
    • Research discovers that Nazi Germany used phones invented i

    • I'm telling you, if child handed that mess into their grammar school teacher, it would make their teacher cry.

  • Lawsuit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 28, 2012 @07:56AM (#41795543)

    The real question is how long it will take Apple to sue Samsung for having one of their prototypes stolen in the same manner as one of Apple's.

    • The real question is how long it will take Apple to sue Samsung for having one of their prototypes stolen in the same manner as one of Apple's.

      Because the manufacturer is LG....about four weeks.

  • The bartender was giddy at first (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bedouin ( 248624 ) on Sunday October 28, 2012 @08:01AM (#41795555)

    . . . but after making a few dozen phone calls realized no one gave a shit, much less was willing to pay money for access to a Google prototype. To compensate for his disappointment, he dicked around with the Google employee.

  • Somebody needs to get a proof read things before they're published.

    I dare you to understand the story based on that summary -- its like random words strung together.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Xacid ( 560407 )

      Almost looks like a publicity stunt. Can't really see why someone would go through the effort of having someone run all around - it's not even that funny.

      Regarding the size of it - I actually don't think I'd mind it, but I typically wear clothes that happen to have large pockets. I'd have to try it out for a while and see if I'd get used to it. Personally I think it'd be kind of sweet to have a phone that could almost be a laptop replacement for all my routine stuff while not destroying my eyes. If only I c

  • Are these the same Google employees that have the master passwords to read half of the world's e-mail? Just curious...

  • Google TOS [google.com]When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and i

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      > The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

      Did you notice this one? Same clause is in every major online services' EULAs, you might check Microsoft's, for example.

      What was your point, except showing that you might have deliberately made the submitted summary misrepresent what exactly happened to show your hate towards Google?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by theodp ( 442580 )

        Just thought it was worth pointing out that a company which felt it necessary to send out an investigator to make threats to get its own IP back (rather than waiting until noon the next day) won't ever give others their own IP back. And for a company that helps itself to information that others unintentionally leave out where it can be grabbed - e.g., the Street View [telegraph.co.uk] and browser privacy bypassing [allthingsd.com] debacles - Google seemed to get overly outraged and aggressive when the shoe was on the other foot and they fou

  • So when you take the drama out of the ridiculous article, here's what you get:

    Dude finds phone. Some drama round giving the phone back,

    Dude finds a phone. Talks to a friend. Friend contacts google. Google wants to get the phone right now, bartender wants to do it next day. Google security dude goes out ot the bar to pick it up. Bartender is out playing a gig somewhere else. Bartender's coworker for some reason tells security dude that bartender is at the police station.

    Security dude goes to police station in the middle of a riot. Calls a random lawyer who gets involved for some reason - or at least makes a statement to Wired.

    Then they meet up and after the security dude proves his ID, bartender returns the phone to him.

    WTF?

    Why was this made to sound like the bar was stormed by Google Secret Service or some such crap?

  • Why does every situation involving missing prototype phones turn into such a clustastrophuck? Is WWIII gonna be started over the iPhone 7 or something?

  • The tables turn (Score:3)

    by laffer1 ( 701823 ) <luke@@@foolishgames...com> on Sunday October 28, 2012 @02:35PM (#41798035) Homepage Journal

    After all the Google fan comments about Apple's lost phones, we now have the reverse situation and all the apologists can't fall over themselves fast enough. This is no different than the apple incident. Before you say anything, remember there's two sides to any story.

    This was probably a PR stunt just like the apple incidents. However, I don't think it worked as well simply because most people are not familiar enough with different android devices to know something is a prototype. There are too many android devices to tell the difference between them!

    I think it's fair for every apple fanboy to rail into google fans on this one just because of the BS comments we've seen in the past on slashdot. You guys are just as bad. I'm sure most of this story is not true, but I don't believe the apple stories 100% either. If google pulls this one more time, everything will be even. :)

  • At least with Apple, we knew who the ass abusing power was. Who at Google demanded the crackdown on Sudsy?

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