We were otherwise occupied (read: slacking off) during high school to do things like file a patent for a potentially massively profitable invention, but Sarah Dodge apparently had no such problem. With a little help from her father, the senior at Saratoga Springs High School has developed a cellphone-activated car starter, which'll start a car from virtually anywhere by simply calling it up and punching in a three digit code. We know there's been hoaxes of this sort before but this seems to be legit, with the credentials of the patent attorney mentioned checking out. Dodge also says the device could potentially be programmed to include security codes, to lock and unlock doors, or control a security system. Not suprisingly, she isn't spilling any details on how the device actually works -- at least not until the patent process is complete -- but we've got a decent idea. First, you put a cellular device in the engine hooked up to the starter. Then, you program the device to activate the starter when fed the correct code. Man, this is getting overwhelming, we give up.

[Via textually.org]