When a five year old boy was kidnapped in Texas, his quick-thinking and technology-savvy dad was able to assist police in locating the boy with the use of an iPad and an iPhone.

The father stopped at a local liquor store and left his son in the 2001 Ford Explorer. Fortunately dad took his iPad with him inside the store. When he left the store, he discovered his car – and his son – were gone.

Using the “Find My iPhone” app on his iPad, he was able to assist police.

A spokesperson for the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office, Lt. Wayne Schultz explained how the father used the iPad in conjunction with the iPhone still in the vehicle to track its whereabouts. Fortunately the man had taken the iPad with him into the store.

The information was passed onto from deputies on the scene to the dispatch office. From there the information was disseminated to troops out in the field almost immediately. This enabled officers to respond almost instantly to the kidnapping and theft.

The vehicle was located and the suspect taken into custody. The boy was evaluated at an area medical facility before being pronounced OK. Even though the story had a happy ending, this is one father who may rethink the idea of leaving his young child in an unattended vehicle.

Earlier this year, GPS was used to thwart two other crimes as well. In South Carolina, a GPS device hidden among building materials that were stolen helped police locate the goods. In Connecticut, the GPS app on a phone helped police locate a pair of robbery suspects. It would seem technology has come a long way in helping stop crime or in solving it once it has occurred.

Apple is constantly successful with new product releases and it looks like the recently announced iPad is not going to be any different. The first two generations of the iPad were wildly successful for a number of reasons and if analysts are to be believed it looks like the new iPad will likely be an incredible success as well. Apple announced that they had already sold out of preorders for the iPad and they are still receiving many more, indicating that the demand is just incredibly high.

This is great news because it means that the tablet market is still very much alive and the economic situation is not as bad as previously though. Many experts originally thought that Apple would have trouble selling a slightly more expensive tablet but now they’re all in agreement that there will likely be close to 2 million iPad sales on release day alone. That is an absolutely staggering number of sales from Apple and from reports it looks like things are not going to slow down any time soon. Apple is expected to increase production dramatically because they fear that there could be an iPad shortage for a number of weeks following release.

Apple has definitely hit a homerun once again with their iPad product lineup. The release date is fast approaching so if you want one, now is the time to start standing in line to grab one Hopefully Apple has enough left over for everyone to get one sometime soon.