Gadgetory

it's kind of freaky to think about how the technology we use every day can be turned around to spy on us your cell phone calls your text messages email online habits if you've got something to hide you've picked the wrong time to be alive and the really bad news it's only going to get worse I'm Donald Bell and this top five I'm counting down the five trends and consumer technology that are like cabinet for intelligence agencies starting off at number five the cloud Google Microsoft Apple Amazon even relatively small guys like Dropbox are all tripping over themselves to offer us free online backup of all of our documents our emails photos videos anything you would traditionally store on a hard drive on top of that the physical storage on today's devices is getting smaller we used to be all up in arms about having to fit our music collection on an 80 gigabyte iPod but now we're suddenly fine with the 16 gigabyte iPad or a MacBook Air laptop with just 128 gigs of storage the point is putting your digital life in the cloud is no longer optional it's the default so now instead of the government having to keep a file on you they can just wait for you to upload the file yourself if you're not paranoid yet how about number four a connected car one of the biggest trends in car tech is the idea of having a cellular data connection baked right into your car GPS navigation pandora radio roadside assistance all available to you right off the lot whether you have a smart phone or not but who has access to that data and how long before that information is used against you in traffic court in theory they'll know exactly how fast you are going at the precise time exactly how loudly you're listening to Justin Bieber radio pretty soon all the drama of a high-speed chase will be eliminated by the flick of a remote engine kill switch kind of takes the fun out of it I mean attempted bank robbery by foot just sounds exhausting okay the number three tech trend that Big Brother is all about cameras on your TV whether it's a smart TV with a Skype camera or an Xbox with Kinect we've now entered the era where TVs are watching us and turning the lights off won't help the connects can even map out your living room and infrared hidden inside the Trojan horse of Dance Central and potential Skype conversations with relatives you really don't want to see on a 55 inch screen we're outfitting our living rooms with Internet connected ever-present video cameras and we really don't know who's on the other side of them I mean if the government required you to have a camera in your living room we'd all riot but if Microsoft says that you get to hold an imaginary lightsaber you'll go out and buy the camera yourself way to go America if you're not scared yet how about number two the always-on smartphone microphone an effort to make interactive virtual assistants like Google now and Siri more seamless the next evolution of this technology will have them listening constantly for your commands and you won't have to wait long the upcoming Motorola X smartphone is rumoured to be the first with this always listening mode now in theory these phones are tuning out everything that's not a command but how the hell is the NSA going to keep their hands off this I mean a constantly activated microphone that you keep in your pocket all day did the Dark Knight teach us nothing you think Morgan Freeman is gonna stand by and let this happen I don't think so but you know what Big Brother would love even more than a microphone in your pocket how about a camera on your face our number one tech trend that the NSA must be salivating over wearable tech we're talking smartwatches Google glass even things like the Nike FuelBand or Fitbit as we are meant our bodies with gadgets that collect data about all that's constantly and the world around us we're basically doing espionage on ourselves it's cute now but when you get fired from your job because Google Auto tagged you in some unsavory Google glass photo or maybe you've got brought in for questioning because your GPS Smart Watch places you at the scene of a crime the novelty of this whole wearable tech thing is gonna wear pretty thin so there you have it five reasons to put foil up in your windows stripped down naked delete your Facebook profile flush your phone and start planning your new life as an Australian rancher but if that's not enough to turn you off the technology altogether you can see more from me over at top five dot cnet.com Donald Bell thanks for watching