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Losing your cell phone can be devastating. There's the cost of replacing it, but also the worry of all of that lost information. Wouldn't it be great if your cell phone could communicate where it was or allow you to remotely secure all of that important data?  Certainly there is encryption software to help you secure information but why can't we have phones that can help protect themselves?

Well, hopefully in the not so distant future, they will. There are glimmers of hope for making stolen cell phones less of a problem. The iPhone offers the MobileMe Service for $100/year. The Find My iPhone features allows a user to go on to their me.com website to find the approximate location of a lost phone on a map. They can then choose to have it beep if it's nearby, or send a message to the phone. At this point, they can also decide to remotely set a 4 digit passcode lock or do a remote deletion of the phone's data so that sensitive information doesn't fall into the wrong hands.

Motorola has also joined this exclusive group of preemptive defense. The Cliq offers the MotoBlur service which, among other things, backs up your data, allows you to locate your phone when missing, and do a remote wipe if needed. Reclaiming that information for your new phone is easy via their website.