It turns out that this feature is technically a trial program in place to evaluate customer feedback and demand, which may or may not lead to expansion (and thus cost) of the program. As such, the program is currently free for those who have the proper hardware. Customers with a Montevina-based ThinkPad (T400, X200, X301, etc) who also have an AT&T 3G card with activated service are eligible for the program.

You can read instructions on how to setup Constant Secure on Lenovo’s eSupport site and I also recommend checking out Matt’s blog post for some more details.

Anyone here with a Montevina system that wants to give this a go?

Source: [LenovoBlogs]

Apparently that wasn’t enough for Lenovo, as the feature also disintegrates the thief.

Silly “viral” ad aside, there IS a video of ThinkPad director Tom Ribble demonstrating the remote disable feature. Ignoring the video cut-over, it looks like a pretty straight forward process. The big thing here is that the machine must have a 3G connection to receive the text. You do also receive a confirmation when the machine is actually locked, a nice feature considering the laptop may not be immediately connected to 3G.

Note to self: disable wireless radios before stealing new ThinkPad.

Source