Kirsten Dunst didn’t need to share her “intimate” heartbeat when she recently turned up naked on the Internet.
Her tweet on Sept. 1, which read “Thank you iCloud,” followed by a smiley pile of poop, said it all pretty clearly.
California’s successful tech company, Apple, unveiled its new lineup of products earlier this week, but the announcement came in the wake of a highly publicized privacy breach.
Dunst and upwards of 100 other female celebrities reportedly had their iCloud accounts hacked, with their private naked photographs posted online for all the world to see.
Apparently, a hacker found a way to restore the stars’ iCloud data and access everything.
In a press release issued by Apple, it called the incident a “very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions.”
Apple dismissed blame, but company CEO Tim Cook later said new security features would be added.
In the meantime, Apple went on with the show.
It previewed the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus during a live announcement on Tuesday, Sept. 9.
Its newest phones are said to compete with Android’s size.
The new phones are also said to have better battery life, display and camera options.
They will be available for sale in Canada later this month.
The company also announced another software upgrade — iOS 8 — along with Apple Pay, which allows people to use their phone to make purchases on their credit cards.
However, the biggest news was, perhaps, the Apple Watch.
It is the company’s newest major product since the iPad and since the death of founder Steve Jobs — and it is the first one to be wearable.
Millions of personalized watch faces are just the beginning.
Messages can be dictated into the watch and you can speak into it for a call or transfer to an iPhone for longer conversations.
The watch will also be able to “tap” you when receiving incoming messages.
“It gets your attention the way another person would,” Apple’s website says of the product’s feature.
It also promotes an “entirely new conversation.”
Sketch pictures for friends, walkie-talkie them or — send them your heart rate.
A sensor in the watch will record and send heartbeats, like any other message, with Apple calling it a “simple and intimate way to tell someone how you feel.”
So, if Apple has its way, by 2015 we will all look like a bunch of Dick Tracy wannabes talking into our wrists, while being tapped incessantly with “intimate” heartbeats strapped to our arms and flashing in front of our eyes all day, every day.
One problem, Apple — nobody even wears a watch any more.
We tell time on that iPhone you sold us.
So, why?
A closer look at the accessibility of if all — strapped to your wrist — seems to be in keeping with the technological evolution dubbed the Internet of Things, an online interconnectivity with objects from our day-to-day lives.
Imagine — among others — your lights, coffee maker, fridge and door locks all linked to turn on, off or lock behind you automatically.
Your lights might turn on in the morning, linked to your alarm clock.
Your coffee maker might know you had scheduled an obscure work meeting and set the dark roast to brew an hour earlier than your typical wakeup call.
Your door might lock behind you on your way out.
It might be controlled by a computer, a smartphone or, perhaps, a watch.
The Apple Watch is set to be released next year and this digital lifestyle might still be years away — or never even happen.
I just hope Apple gets a better pulse of our personal security before then.
Because, when we trust our lives to our electronics, we are revealing much more than our boobs on the Internet.
Jessica Wallace is a reporter for Kamloops This Week.
