It would be awesome if someone was breaking into your car that your car talked to all the near by ones, then all the alarms on all the cars near it al went off at the same time. Might be a little noisier then one alarms, upside can't just clip the wire and have the noise go away.

would only suck when people got used to hearing them go off, and ignore them like they do right now when a car alarms goes off.

Dickey

@RigorMortis: Beat me to the punch. :) Sounds like the prof zhu needs to get out of the lab more. What fun it would be to drop a jammer in parking lot and cause a siren-pede... and pretty soon nobody would answer it. Reminds me of those "brilliant" ideas i have that my wife shoots down in about 5 sec. Need a word for ideas thought up in a vaccum that get defeated by common sense. Maybe NTBI pronounced "en-TIB-ee" standing for "Not Too Bright Idea". "OK, daddy. I'll listen, but i hope not another one of your brilliant entibees."

craighyatt

Good god. I've been woken up at six in the morning often enough to know that car alarms have a ridiculous number of false positives. Hell, I've even seen car alarms randomly go off in the middle of parking lots with no one around, or on ferries a mile out into the ocean where you couldn't steal a car anyways. The last thing we need is have police running around as well every time this happens. Well, not like they'd respond to more than a few of these calls before giving up permanently and making this whole invention nothing but a useless annoyance.

RigorMortis

@Log1c:

no, the body design. newer cars are fugly.

nutbastard

Just pop a Michael Bolton CD in the player and turn the knob to 11 (after you turn the car off). Anyone starting it will run screaming and never dare to steal a car again!

atomx

@nutbastard: You mean the lock?

Log1c

Oh that's just great. I wonder what would happen if someone decided to make sweet sweaty love in the back seat of their car and the alarm starts beeping. "HELP! Someone is being murdered in me! HELP!" The Police arrive to find an embarrassed pantless couple sitting the car as it refused to open it's doors to contain the "threats".

Silver_Back

@nutbastard: I did pull the wire from the coil to the distributor on my old 66 once or twice when I got really worried about it. That hood of that car could be opened from the outside -- not to mention it could be started with a screwdriver.

Cars I've owned since then have had starter kill in the alarm system.

GeekyNerdGuy

@GeekyNerdGuy:

but most cars made in the last 10 years came standard with some sort of theft deterrent device. brand new cars are stolen much less frequently than 10-15 year old cars.

@IphtashuFitz:

seen it, phil hartman narrated, right?

worst combo - expensive stereo in a 70's or 80's car.

nutbastard

Might work, sort of "little brother"-ish, to coin a term, meaning not quite big brother looking over your shoulder but, well ...you get it.

VideoVampire

@IphtashuFitz: I remember the trunk monkey. Thats classic!

ziggieboi

Why don't all the cars just autonomously move around and block in the car being jacked! Imagine coming out to find your car surrounded by its herd, safe and protected.

gizmodohomepage

@nutbastard: Reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live parody ad for a car called the Chameleon. On the outside it looked like a piece of crap, with rust holes, one door covered in primer instead of paint, missing hubcaps, one white-wall tire, etc. Inside it was the most luxurious car you've ever seen.

IphtashuFitz

This is the first step to making our cars behave like those stupid robots in the Star Wars prequels.
"Roger roger"

Hvedhrungr

@nutbastard: Sorry, I see that Darkest Daze already pointed that out.

GeekyNerdGuy

@nutbastard: Dude, most things made in the last 10 years don't have a distributor cap.

GeekyNerdGuy

@nutbastard: haha, nice. and after that, i have a new assault missile for those idiot bikers who think they are in cars and are biking in the car lane.

Anomynoose

My expensive german automobile has the ultimate in theft protection: a manual transmission

regexp

@Anomynoose:

a rubber band and a plastic produce bag make for a decent DIY non-invasive catheter. just blow it up first to make sure there's no holes in it.

nutbastard

one last suggestion - just drive a car no one would ever, ever want to steal.

another thing is (im assuming) some crooks dont know how to drive stick - and certainly a slipping clutch can be very frustrating when attempting to flee.

nutbastard

@HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!:
What if your karate chop guy has had too many chops to his noggin himself and has short term memory problems...?

aec007

@Chromeo: i need to work on a patent for a toilet in my car. or at least a drain in the floor so i can take a leak without having to pull over or open a window.

Anomynoose

@Darkest Daze:

mines 13 years old and no problem accessing it. it takes one screw.

nutbastard

Why not just install Kitt.

ExNinja

@HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!: i heard not only are his offspring born with beards and chest hair regardless of gender, so are his sperm

Anomynoose

@spenc938: No need to be a jackass about it. I had to read the article 3 times before I finally saw that the car tells the "herd" goodbye when it's unlocked, so they don't freak out. You could have, you know, actually been helpful and told me anyway. Either that or, you know, not said anything?

Platypus Man

@nutbastard:
Pulling the distributor is great and all, unless your car was made within the last 15 years....

Darkest Daze

I just fill my car with feces before leaving it unattended... hasn't been stolen yet, so it must be working!

Chromeo

Trunk Monkey to the rescue!

+ Watch video

IphtashuFitz

@Anomynoose: Flexin? that is too much work
he just blinks and BIM BAM BoOM! baby 9 seconds later...chuck norrises off spring waits for NO ONE

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

@nutbastard: Towed is yet theft in my book; epoxy which is kept temporarily concrete-solid by encrypted nanobots ,that while parked ,good for extreme breakage too while you loose them little fellas on the way and they crawl back to the pile.

Valicious

@Emiat: i thought they had died and then out of nowhere my brother sent me an email with all of these chuck norris jokes that he apparently had never heard. he said people at his work were going crazy over them. i was shocked and appalled and shocked.

Anomynoose

@HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!: how could i make fun of chuck norris? he probably is my father somehow. that man is powerful enough to impregnate women by flexing.

Anomynoose

@Anomynoose: Finally died? They died the best part of 2 years ago, anyone making Chuck Norris jokes now are basically digging up the corpse and proceeding to strip it bare while been unoriginal and unfunny.

Emiat

@Platypus Man: If you had read the article, you would know the answer to your question.

spenc938

@bpapa9013: That would just cure hangovers.
people are paying to get car battery shock in Mexico , five bucks man.

Valicious

best solution to car theft:

do not park it anywhere it could be easily towed. there are people with tow trucks who just hook up and drive off with em that way.

install a solenoid that interrupts the starter line that is hidden switch activated.

as a last resort, you can always pop the hood and take the distributor cap with you.

nutbastard

@HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!: that could prove problematic, for instance, what if the karate-chopper thought you didnt pay them enough? then you know what if the person you hired is a car thief?

Charging_Mooses

GTA would be like Final Fantasy: random encounters with vigilantes.

Valicious

I've always been a big fan of electrifying things in this context, car seats, door handles, etc...

bpapa9013

..whoa there..don't you dare make fun of chuck norris

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

@HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!: word. i'm pretty sure chuck norris is available for work since the chuck norris jokes have finally died.

Anomynoose

How about just hiring someone to stand by your car and karate chop the shit outta anyone who isn't you trying to touch it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!

Yeah, I agree... it would be like several car alarms going off at once instead of just one, so presumably, it would just be more annoying and people would just have to work harder to tune them out and never hear them.

And how is it supposed to know that the owner didn't return and is taking their own car away?

Platypus Man

This system would be nice if it included gps to track the stolen car, but then we are not really that far off lowjack really.

Alluvian

This doesn't work unless there's a critical mass of them. (The idea of buying cheap sensors and putting them on other people's cars is a great way to get the crap beat out of you). I can imaging it might be feasible if they develop self-driving cars that communicate with each other. This could then be implemented in software.

Miguel Valdespino

@Miguel Valdespino: Self-driving cars that communicate - I like that image! If they recognize a would-be thief, the whole "herd" could move away!

Imaging coming out of the grocery store and seeing your car, and all the cars that were near yours, parked at the lot across the street.

taodude