Online and Mobile Services
Many newer systems capable of accessing online services (such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPhone) have internal hardware-based unique identifiers, allowing individual systems to be tracked over a network and banned from accessing certain online services. Such systems usually continue to operate for purposes unrelated to the online service, but they are often considered "bricked" by users of the online service.
Mobile telephones have a fixed identification code, the IMEI; a telephone reported stolen can have its IMEI blocked by networks—effectively bricked—although anyone with the necessary expertise and equipment can usually change the IMEI. In 2011 a United States Senator proposed that phones be "bricked" when reported stolen. Some local police chiefs agreed and in April 2012 the FCC announced that the service would be available later in the year.
Read more about this topic: Brick (electronics)
Famous quotes containing the words mobile and/or services:
“From three to six months, most babies have settled down enough to be fun but aren’t mobile enough to be getting into trouble. This is the time to pay some attention to your relationship again. Otherwise, you may spend the entire postpartum year thinking you married the wrong person and overlooking the obvious—that parenthood can create rough spots even in the smoothest marriage.”
—Anne Cassidy (20th century)
“Working women today are trying to achieve in the work world what men have achieved all along—but men have always had the help of a woman at home who took care of all the other details of living! Today the working woman is also that woman at home, and without support services in the workplace and a respect for the work women do within and outside the home, the attempt to do both is taking its toll—on women, on men, and on our children.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)