Google Nexus 4 Prototype Lost In a Bar

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."

Comments

Google Police

[DogManhunt]

Nice to see Google walking around with private investigators and lawyers just because one of their workers "forgot" his phone in a bar. Do no evil, amirite?

Re:Google Police

[Altanar]

I highly suggest you read the article since the summary is highly edited to make Google look bad. Example: Google didn't send a private investigator. It sent a single Google employee who was jerked around by the bartender and his friend because they wanted to cling to their powertrip. The only lawyer was just guy the bartender knew. Google even offered to give the bartender guy a free phone if he promised to be quiet about the leak until the phone was announced at the Android event.

Bad Luck Google: Sends a guy to pick up a lost phone. Gets screwed around by the people who found it. Still offers a free phone to the guy. Gets called evil by the Internet.

Re:Google Police

[JaredOfEuropa]

What evil? Someone lost his phone, the company that owns it sends a guy over to collect it. Given the fact that it was an important prototype, it's understandable that the guy was a bit anxious to get it back.

Then again, Google might have staged the whole thing. I think they are a little jealous of Apple, with their millions of fans going ohh and ahh over fuzzy pictures of a frickin' new docking connector of all things...

Re:Google Police

[r1348]

Brand new /. account posts pretestuos anti-Google comment the same minute the story is published.
Shill anyone?

Re:Google Police

[JabberWokky]

Bartender felt "harassed" so didn't stick around work for what he seemed to think would be a confrontational meeting.

Seriously? If it were your normal phone with photos of your family, and the person who found it took off -- with your phone, that you owned, would that be considered reasonable?

Forget everything about it being "unreleased". That is moot as hell. There's no provision of ethics that an object being "really really cool" gives you a different standard when it comes to returning lost property.

Re:Google Police

[torkus]

Here's the thing...

The bartender did not own the phone. 'Finders-keepers' is NOT the law. The opposite in fact.

Yeah, it's not a federal manhunt type case but the guy knowingly in possession of property not belonging to him (the lost vs. stolen line gets blurred quickly) could definitely have criminal charges filed against him. How far they'd get, who knows.

Of course they insisted on meeting right away. They want to protect their secrecy - and getting the phone back is far easier on everyone than the guy possibly getting arrested. You can't expect a company to just let this type of thing go.

What I really want to know is why these people are bringing top secret phones to bars in the first place? I understand "testing" and all but is it secret or is it something you're bringing out in public?

Hell, get one of those bluetooth leashes. Problem solved.

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is difficult to take seriously.

WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co

[oodaloop]

TFS failed to mention that the CEO of the company that lost the iPhone is dead too. Coincidence?

Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co

[AlphaWolf_HK]

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?

A PR Stunt?

[Dupple]

Google’s Andy Rubin: ’I’d Be Happy’ If Someone Left Prototype Android Phone In A Bar ‘And Someone Wrote About It’

http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-andy-rubin-id-be-happy-if-someone-left-prototype-android-phone-in-a-bar-and-someone-wrote-about-it-2010-4#ixzz2ASEIo0n1

Re:What is this fucking summary about?

[91degrees]

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.

Re:WTF

[tuppe666]

Wait, you need riot police, armed with guns... to recover a lost phone prototype...?

Crazy.

Tenuous Link from the article.

"Shortly after an officer-involved shooting in which a plainclothes officer shot a suspect who pulled a gun on the officer Thursday night, dozens of rioters surrounded San Francisco’s Mission District Police Station while one person vandalized the police station, according to San Francisco police."

14 people were killed in a cafe suicide bominbg in Somalia too, not sure why Google is not being blamed for than too.

The bartender was giddy at first

[bedouin]

. . . 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.

Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co

[MysteriousPreacher]

The article makes it sound like a plain clothed officer was chasing the guy. I don't know about you, but if some random guy started harassing me on the street and following me when I'm trying to get away from him I'd be concerned. You don't know if a plain clothed officer really is a police officer or just a crazy nut out to mess with people.

Yeah, as a gang member on parole I'd certainly pull a gun. What else am I expected to do, ask for ID?

Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co

[SpzToid]

One of the officers attempted to talk to one of the two people who ran from police with the officer in pursuit.

While running, the suspect pulled a gun, later determined to be a TEC-9 pistol, and the officer ordered him to drop the weapon, Andraychak said.

Instead, the suspect turned toward the officer and began to raise the pistol. The officer feared for his life and shot at the suspect, Andraychak said.

Police said the suspect was hit twice and was then taken to San Francisco General Hospital where he is being treated for non life-threatening injuries.

A TEC-9? Seriously, the guy pulls out a loaded TEC-9 and points it, (at anyone?)? I think that is *two* lucky people who both still alive; especially the police officer who had to square off against that thing! Wikipedia it like I did; I'm not going to cite the link for it. Cheers for the cop who seems to have handled the situation well!

Re:Just in case you're wondering about the riot co

[SvnLyrBrto]

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 on a different BART platform, shooting an Iraq war veteran in the head with a tear gas canister during the occupy protests, and switching off telephone and internet service... something that you expect in North Korea or middle-eastern theocracies and dictatorships, not the United States... to suppress speech and communication during another protest (of the aforementioned killing of the mentally-ill homeless man). These sorts of things are not exactly going to engender trust or goodwill, especially amongst minorities or otherwise marginalized communities.

(* Yes, I know, Oscar Grant was kind of a scumbag. That's not relevant though. This is the United States. We're just not supposed to *DO* summary executions here... at all And being a scumbag doesn't change the fact that Grant was unarmed, unresisting, and lying prone and motionless when Mehserle decided to shoot him in the back.)