Boeing's New Smartphone Self-Destructs

Maybe President Obama can stop complaining about his BlackBerry. Boeing, a company normally associated with planes, is creating a new smartphone designed specifically with security in mind, the BBC reports. The "Boeing Black" features a special hardware design that causes it to effectively self-destruct if tampered with; all data will be deleted and the phone rendered useless. The Android device also has some other security features, and will contain two SIM cards so it can switch between civilian wireless networks and government ones.

Boeing expects the phone to be used "primarily by governmental agencies and their contractors," and hasn't announced a release date, price point, or even what carriers it's working with. "We saw a need for our customers in a certain market space," a spokeswoman said, according to Reuters. Quartz speculates that Boeing is filling the void left by BlackBerry's freefall, while the Verge wonders how the self-destruct feature will work if the phone runs out of charge. (More Boeing stories.)