The KitKat Bomb

The announcement that the new Android OS will be named KitKat hit our house like a bomb. I know that sounds a little extreme. Remember I have two teenagers, everything about our house is extreme.

There’s a little background to consider here. The Boy wants to work for Microsoft, I think I mentioned that. He does have an aptitude for computers, an unfortunate one. Not in terms of breaking them, that’s The Girl, and she wants to work for Google. Should I warn them? Maybe later. Her ambition is largely to irritate her little brother. It’s right in line with he likes one of the rival collages in the area solely because she wants to go to the other one. When they clash in the annual football game that divides the state by where you went to college, it’s like a war zone over the dinner table.

Anyway, The Boy’s aptitude for computers led me to start him on various smartphones at a young age. (I have a bit of a phone fetish. There it is, do what you will with that.) I made him carry the original Palm OS, Blackberry, WebOS (New Palm that never really caught on), Windows 5, 6, & 7, iOS, and, of course, Android. He’s had several of the Android software versions simply because I have a collection of devices for them to be on. He was working toward a Windows 8 phone, to match his Windows 8 PC, and get everything all in line to sync with his Xbox and . . .

Then the KitKat announcement came and several things happened.

I started craving a KitKat, which I hadn’t thought of in . . . awhile. The Girl was dancing and wanting a physical version of the mascot (she has a small collection of Android mascots and the new one is so cute!), and The Boy’s fingers started twitching as he eyed his phone, wondered if it would upgrade to KitKat, and decided maybe he’d put off Windows 8. Just for a little bit.

Well played, Google. Well played.

 

The Android robot is reproduced or modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

Social Media and the Teenage Horde

A friend of mine updated her MySpace page and sent me an invite to check it out. (Yes, MySpace is still around.) While I was looking it over, The Girl was looking over my shoulder and asked “What’s that?”

Are you kidding me? How can someone not know about MySpace? I was so stunned, I can’t remember if I even answered her. I became lost in misty memories.

I fled MySpace years ago because it was being overrun with teenagers. Like many, I found Facebook and sighed in relief to be able to be social with adults I didn’t know. You all know how that turned out. Yeah. My teenagers live on Facebook too. So once again I migrated to Google+ to seek adult interaction. (Crossing my fingers and looking over my shoulder for teenagers.)

In actuality, The Boy has found Google+, he’s just not interested. He’s thirteen and not enough of his peers are there (yet). It’ll happen. Teenagers are like some sort of plague and there’s just no way to contain them in the eWorld. They’re better at it than we are. We’re the generation that thought Tron was neat for crying out loud! My kids got bored, said “That’s ridiculous, it doesn’t work like that,” and wandered off, just as it was getting good. Now The Boy is eyeing The Matrix and Caprica and I swear he’s wondering if he could make that tech work.

I look at him sometimes and see The Terminator and Battlestar Galactica in our future. Did I mention The Boy wants to work for Microsoft and The Girl wants to work for Google? Hollywood may be prophetic and is certainly giving them ideas, but we have social media to blame for addicting them to the cyberworld. Thanks, MySpace.