You just gifted your kid a brand new iPad mini after reading my recommendations, but now you are concerned that they might lose it! Never fear, Techno Trent is here!
In all seriousness, we all sometimes misplace things. Fortunately, there are tools out there to help us recover our technology.
For Apple portable devices:
Apple provides a service called Find My iPhone in the form of an app you can download to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. When you download the app and sign into it, you can track your device from www.icloud.com. This is accessible from any computer, Mac or PC. There, you navigate to the Find My iPhone and have your device play a noise, or lock it and make it inaccessible. You will also get a GPS location of the device. In a worst case scenario, you can also remotely wipe the device's memory.
As you can see, this is a very useful tool. I have found it to come in handy to make sure I always know where my iPhone is.
For Android devices:
Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, Google does not have an official answer to Find My iPhone. Thus, we must turn to third-party applications. Lookout Security and Antivirus (www.lookout.com) is such an app. Using their website, you are able to, like Find My iPhone, find your device from any computer and have the voice play a loud noise, or a “scream”. In order to remotely wipe and lock your device, you will have to step up to a paid Premium account.
leaving same on a desk, table or dashboard is an open invitation for any criminal or 'opportunist' to pick up and play with. (or maybe even steal?) i've had some 'toys' stolen, left in places my 'friends' inhabited, even ones i 'played' with too. most i never recovered, never saw again, despite querys, demands, accusations and 'parental assistance'. my advice is, keep your toys in a safe place to begin with, like you do most of your $100 bills.