Remember Datadots, the theft-prevention adhesive that you can use on your gadgets? Here comes a cousin with a couple of additional faculties – the STOP Security Plate is a bar-coded plate specifically aimed at laptop protection. Once you stick the bar-coded sticker onto your laptop, any attempt to remove it will not only require phenomenal effort, but will also leave a permanent mark on the laptop which says “Stolen Property 1-800-488-STOP.” So if someone happens to come across the message while a stolen laptop is being resold, they will be able to call the 800 number to report the theft. And consider the impressive statistics that the company reports - 8 out of 10 lost laptops are returned to the 5,000 companies using the STOP system worldwide.

However the questions that were raised earlier still remain. The product is not completely fool-proof - what if the perpetrator decides to stick another sticker on the STOP plate? The important thing you should remember then is - at $25.50 the security plate cannot be a panacea for all problems, but it could definitely be a good starting point for gadget lovers and could pave the way for future fail-safe inventions in this category.

Via ChipChick .