Tech that's just wrong

Google Street View: Every breath you take
A van cruises silently down your street. Its windows are blacked out. Its inhabitants are unknown. The only clue as to its purpose is a sinister tangle of recording equipment sticking out of the top. It's like a giant audiovisual shark, watching; always watching.

Is this a scene from George Orwell's terrifying dystopian vision of 1984? No, it's real, and it's here. Is it the nanny state's latest scheme to monitor you, watch you and hopefully tax you in some way? No. Google is watching you.

Google? Aren't they the friendly folk who help me find Web sites, cheat at pub quizzes, and look at porn? Yes, but since 2006 they're also photographing the streets of selected world cities and posting the results online for all to see. It was Jeremy Bentham who developed the idea of the Panopticon, a system of prison design whereby everybody could be seen from one central point, with the upshot being that prisoners learnt to modulate their behaviour -- because they never knew if they were being watched. And that doesn't sound like much fun, does it?