The Top Seven Ways Technology Owns You

It's no secret that technological evolution has occurred at a frenetic pace. As technologies advance, they typically become cheaper, and in turn, their use becomes more widespread. But when it comes to those technologies that find their use in surveillance, tracking, and behavior control, it can be downright chilling how pervasive their use is in our daily lives. Bust out your tin foil hats, 'cuz these are the top seven ways technology owns you. 

7.  Your Car is Watching

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The original concept of a car was basically a rolling box with an engine and input controls (i.e. steering wheel, gas, brake, clutch). The rest was up to you. These days, cars nearly do more driving than the occupants do. While features like Mercedes-Benz's automated cruise control are great for lazy drivers, some of these cutting edge features really have less to do with convenience and more to do with controlling the behavior of people driving.

What started with basic computer programs like traction control, which controls which wheels get power in order to maximize stability (and prevent you from doing burnouts), has mutated into gas pedals which tell you how fast you can accelerate and GPS-controlled throttle limiting, where an eye in the sky literally tells your car how fast you're allowed to go.

And if things do manage to go wrong, interested parties can retrieve the car's "black box" – a data recorder that's been quietly added to the majority of cars made in the last five years or so – which can relay information about vehicle speed, brake and throttle position, g-forces, and various other stats in the seconds before an airbag is deployed. This data can then be used as evidence in lawsuits or prosecutions.

And let's not forget that modern cars have become a great asset for wiretap-happy entities too. Features like GM's OnStar service can be activated remotely on any OnStar-equipped car at any time, allowing eavesdroppers to listen to conversations inside the car whenever they like. It's been done in the past, and while it's been deemed illegal, the technology (and the ability to use it this way) hasn't changed at all.

6. Google Knows More about You Than Your Mom Does

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It's no big secret that Google is very interested in collecting data about the people that use their services. But when you start scoping the ads on the right hand side of your emails and see things related to the words within body of email, it really drives home the level at which Google is willing to dig into your privacy in order to harvest as much data about you as possible.

Combined with services like Google's newly unveiled "My Location" feature in Google Maps, which allows Google to pinpoint your location without the use of GPS, and the fact that Google essentially indexes the entire Internet and catalogs any mention of your name and the context in which it occurs, it becomes clear that Google holds some pretty extensive and valuable information about nearly everyone who uses the Internet on a regular basis.

Next year, Google is going up the ante when they get into the PC operating system realm with Chrome OS, which many speculate will be able to replace your current OS for free. At that point, when Google is maintaining nearly every function of your computer, they will have the ability to look at just about everything you do on your computer (for the purposes of data collection, of course).

When it comes to acts of outright evil by Google, it's a case of "so far, so good." But that data isn't going to vanish any time soon, and forever is a long time for valuable information to stay out of the wrong hands.


5. Social Networks Know Even More Than Google

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If the amount of information Google has about you creeps you out, the kind of data social networking sites like Facebook have is Google's wet dream. Last year, when Facebook changed their terms of service and essentially gave themselves the ability to do anything they wanted with user's data and content whenever they felt like it, the community freaked out. Facebook eventually reverted back to the previous terms of service because of the backlash, perhaps just to give themselves some time to find a better way of phrasing things.

Where a company like Google focuses mainly on email and searches to gather information about users, Facebook has a vast array of different areas to pull information from. Users willingly post just about everything about themselves – and others. Any regular Facebook user knows the unpleasant experience of finding information and/or photos of themselves that have been posted by someone else when they would've rather it had been kept out of the public eye.

Even seemingly innocuous activities, like the myriad of quizzes that people post results from on a constant basis, are already being used for market research. Facebook knows how old you are, where you live, what you like to eat, who your friends and family are, what you look like, where you like to go, and what you like to do. While Google might collect random bits and pieces of your online existence from various footprints you've left behind, Facebook's 200 million users have organized everything for them, and update the details on a daily basis.

4. Digital Cameras: Everyone Gets Their Fifteen Minutes

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Here is a perfect example of a technology which became insanely widespread once the tech became cheap enough. Now, nearly everyone owns a cell phone, and nearly all cell phones have cameras on them. That means that nearly everything that happens anywhere can be easily recorded, and with YouTube now as the de facto source for user generated videos, everyone knows where to go to see it. Would moments like this and this have been nearly as publicized if digital cameras weren't so commonplace we didn't have the ability to post the video in a place where anyone could view it at any time? 

While digital cameras have had a positive impact in regards to holding people accountable for their actions, it comes at the price of privacy and that lingering concern in the back of people's minds that what you're about to do may end up on YouTube for literally millions of people to see, and once it's out there, there's no getting it back. That might be comforting to some in terms of safety, but for others, the idea that you never really have public anonymity is a disconcerting thought.

3. Credit Cards Monitor What You Buy

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Simply put, credit card companies are some of the shadiest companies in the world, and go to great lengths to modify their cardholders' behavior to make sure they get paid.

Did you know that your credit card company can look at what you use your credit card on and then turn around and use that information against you? Well, they can and do, and will make changes to your APR based on what you use your card on. So, if you swipe the plastic at the bar in Vegas or use it to bail your drunk friend out of jail, don't be surprised when your APR goes up despite your good credit, because your lifestyle is a credit risk. Something to think about next time you buy…anything.


2. Safety Cameras for Your Protection

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A recent trend in city planning has been the implementation of citywide CCTV – essentially covering entire metro areas with cameras in the interest of "public safety." The city that is perhaps the most notorious for this practice is London, where each citizen is filmed more than 300 times a day on average. This technology is also extended a step further in England with "speed cameras" which line the roads and automatically ticket drivers who exceed the speed limit.

You would think that a city where citizens are constantly under the watchful eye of the authorities would be a very safe place to be. However, even though London's authorities are aided by literally tens of thousands of cameras in the public areas throughout London, the technology has done almost nothing to help solve or deter crime.

Despite this evidence that CCTV blanketing isn't really effective, it would unwise to be lulled into an "it can't happen here" mentality. Not only are cities like New York and Chicago already on the bandwagon, but smaller communities are joining in too, and a lot of people are totally into it.

1. RFID Tags: The Way of the Future

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Radio frequency identification chips present a vast array of privacy concerns. In the simplest terms, RFID technology uses radio frequencies to broadcast a unique identifier to devices searching for those signals. The chips do not require batteries. At this point, RFID chips can be built to be smaller than a grain of sand and are cheap enough to be embedded into just about anything you use – cell phones, tennis shoes, sunglasses...whatever.

In products, the main intended purpose of RFID tags is to track inventory and make sure it gets to where it is supposed to be. However, RFID tags do not stop working once the product has been purchased, and therefore raise concerns about the ability to track someone who has purchased an item which contains an RFID tag. The chips are also currently used in passports, and the ability to hack these chips remotely via wireless antenna has been already been proven conclusively. Despite the ease of exploit, its use as a wireless payment system via mobile phones and credit cards is currently under development.

So essentially, whether or not someone takes great strides to remain "off the grid," RFID will ensure that even purchasing a pair of socks, in cash, will make the individual trackable. A brave new world indeed.

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Keanu Reeves - An A-list slacker grows up

His next role sees him playing the toy-boy next door. But is Keanu Reeves really the guitar-strumming, eternal teenager of popular repute? Kaleem Aftab finds out

Friday, 3 July 2009

AP

Mysterious dude: Keanu as Chris Nadeau in 'The Private Lives of Pippa Lee', with co-star Robin Wright Penn.

It's quite disconcerting meeting Keanu Reeves in the flesh. The 44-year-old looks at least a decade younger than his age, with his prominent cheekbones, flowing locks and smooth, other-worldly complexion. Deflecting questions with a mysterious gleam in his eye, there's something of the teenager about him.

So it's not entirely surprising that his next role is playing Robin Wright Penn's toy-boy in The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, a film adapted by Rebecca Miller from her own novel, though the actors are only a year apart in age. "The cougar complex [younger men with older women] is something that happens all the time," shrugs Reeves, who stars as Chris Nadeau, a free spirit, Pippa's neighbour and her eventual love interest. "It's definitely something that needs to be explored in film. In terms of older women and younger men, at the end of the day it really doesn't make a difference to whether a relationship will work."

In person, Reeves has a gentle manner that makes him immediately likeable but on paper, he remains one of cinema's greatest enigmas. It's too easy, never mind wrong, to typecast him simply as a pretty-boy actor who happened to be in the right place at the right time – the living embodiment of the dumb, feckless character he played in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, the film that first charmed a predominantly teenage fanbase back in 1989.

In one daft thrash of an air guitar, his performances in Stephen Frears's well-received adaptation of Dangerous Liaisons and the 1986 independent hit River's Edge were quickly forgotten. Ever since then, his career has been one long battle to be taken seriously. It doesn't help that, even in his mid-40s, he still looks like a slacker, dressing as if the clothes on his back were the first things that he found on his bedroom floor that morning.

I wonder if Reeves feels that people sometimes have a false impression of him because of the roles he has taken and how he looks. "I feel that once in a while, that's for sure," he says, slowly.

Of course, the main reason for this misguided perception of the actor is that Reeves is so very, very good at playing dumb. His career highs in terms of box-office hits and critical acclaim arrived in the shape of Speed and The Matrix, both of them roles in which an ordinary American surpasses and surprises himself by showing guile, intuition and fleet-footedness.

The impact made by both these films on popular culture was such that it's easy to forget some of the more eclectic choices Reeves made in the 1990s. In 1991, he played the Prince Hal role in My Own Private Idaho, Gus van Sant's loose adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part I, which is principally remembered for the performance of his co-star and great friend River Phoenix, who died soon after the film was released. Van Sant then cast Reeves again in his disappointing adaptation of Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. Reeves also played Don John in Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing, while Bernardo Bertolucci, recognising Reeves' unusual complexion and looks, cast him as the Indian Prince Siddhartha in the disappointing Little Buddha.

Since then, he's made some surprising choices, none more so than his decision to disappear and play Hamlet in a production in Winnipeg at the height of his fame. Critics travelled across the world with their poison pens at the ready, but Reeves came away with mostly positive reviews. His desperation not to be typecast as an action hero saw him turn down a huge paycheck to reprise his role of Officer Jack Traven in the sequel to Speed (Jason Patric stepped into the breach). "I don't really have a preference between making independent films and blockbusters," says Reeves. "All I hope is that I can continue making these choices. I'm just glad that I've worked on so many different kinds of genres and popular films in the past."

He's also worked on some truly unpopular films. He had several career lows between 1995 and 1998, a period during which it looked like Reeves' career was quickly heading towards oblivion. The woeful choices included A Walk in the Clouds, Chain Reaction, Feeling Minnesota, The Last Time I Committed Suicide and The Devil's Advocate.

The feeling that Reeves was becoming a laughing stock was compounded by his decision to form a rock band under the name of Dogstar, with the band-mates Bret Domrose and Robert Mailhouse. Reeves played the bass guitar and sang backing vocals. Largely on the back of the actor's fame, Dogstar soon found themselves opening for Bon Jovi in Australia and sharing a stage with David Bowie. They also performed at Glastonbury in 1999 but their debut album, Our Little Visionary, was only released in Japan, the country where they played their last concert in 2002. Today, Reeves seems almost embarrassed by his musical escapades. "The band broke up. I haven't been playing bass recently. I sometimes play with some friends and do some jamming. I'm interested in different sounds, country. I play a lot of Neil Young."

But, just when you feel that Reeves is cornered, like a tiger he comes out fighting and tips the balance back his way. Ewan McGregor, Nicolas Cage and Will Smith were all offered and turned down the lead role in the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix. Reeves' decision to take the role propelled the actor to the top of the A-list. This time, he didn't turn down the sequels and picked up a huge cheque that reportedly also included a percentage of the gross.

Post-Matrix, Reeves could get films greenlit simply by agreeing to star in them. His power was such that he could even decide who directed films. When James Ellroy's The Night Watchman was adapted into Street Kings, it was Reeves who had a major say in David Ayer being the director. His only recent success has been Constantine, in which he starred opposite Tilda Swinton. He has also become more choosy. In the last three years he's appeared in three films: Street Kings, The Day the Earth Stood Still and now, Pippa Lee.

Of this latest role, he asserts firmly that "nothing about my character Chris comes from my own life, everything is taken from the novel." He continues: "I think that films end up becoming short stories when you do adaptations of novels. You have to condense and the film-maker just picks whatever part of the story that they want to tell. It's a process of cutting, editing and censoring. All that has to be the same is that you capture the essence of the characters and the story."

Reeves was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1964. His mother, Patricia, was a costume designer and his father, Samuel Nowlin Reeves, was a geologist. The name Keanu means "Cool Breeze in the Mountains" in Hawaiian. After his parents divorced, his mother resettled the family first in New York and then in Toronto. It's an eclectic background that has made him appreciate stories from all walks of life. "It's what stories are, they are reflections of the environment. Stories are told so that we can survive and learn from experiences, pass on and share knowledge."

He's famously guarded of his private life. The actor has not been in a long-term relationship since the death of his girlfriend Jennifer Syme in a car accident in 2001. Her death came after she gave birth to a stillborn daughter, Ava Archer Syme-Reeves, in December 1999. He was recently linked to the fashion guru Trinny Woodall, around the time of the break-up of her marriage, and has since been photographed with the actress Parker Posey.

In his spare time he has been busy learning to cook. He reveals that he's been reading Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavour by the popular French television chef Hervé This. "I'm dabbling in it and looking at becoming a chef. He is fantastic. I didn't really cook before but this book may be changing my life." It's hard to tell if he's joking or researching a role. He also admits to being a bit of a wine connoisseur. Recently he got his first computer and started using email; in the past he'd made a point of being something of a luddite. "My friend finally bought me one," he admits. "And of course I use it."

This is as far as it goes, though. When a question becomes more personal he replies by making the sound of the sea. Ask him about poor reviews and he breaks into song, crooning, "One drop of water does not make an ocean, baby."

Finally, he relents. "I want to see what they [the critics] write, for sure. You know it's going to be whatever it's going to be and you have to take a review as it is. I mean, whatever they write is whatever they write, and I'm not going to be able to change it. The review is part of why you want to entertain. You want to know what your audience thinks about the film and the performance. I'm interested in what people think, even if it's just one person." And with that he's gone, back to his kitchen.

'The Private Lives of Pippa Lee' is released on 10 July