"A Bear Ate My iPhone!"

A Bear Ate My iPhone!

Apple's mobile phenomenon has a new use: self defense


The 'geniuses' at the Apple Store in Vermont have probably run into all sorts of excuses for broken iPhones, but they just didn't believe Kris Rowley. "A bear ate my iPhone," she told them.
This summer, Rowley was hiking in the woods of Vermont when she felt a predator's eyes following her. Rowley stopped dead in her tracks. A young bear slowly emerged from behind an evergreen tree. Rowley, CISO for the State of Vermont, knows about facing down malware - not avoiding a mauling.

(snip)

Rowley backed away slowly, the bear followed slowly. Then Rowley had a funny thought: I wonder what is its motivation? Curiosity? She quickly decided that it wasn't really important. She backed away a little faster, the bear followed a little faster.

Rowley went through her mental list of how to prevent bear attacks. Play dead? A good last resort. Pepper spray? Didn't have it. Drop a backpack to distract the bear? She wasn't wearing one. All Rowley had was her iPhone.

She could use one of her lifelines and phone a friend. Or maybe there was an anti-bear app among the 80,000 apps on the App Store. There's Battle Bears, Bears on a Wire, Bear Beware, Chicago Bears, Go Bears!, My Teddy Bears, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The bear closed within 30 feet. "In a semi-panic, I threw the phone at the bear," Rowley says.

(more at the link...)

http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/321722/bear_ate_my_iphone