Automatically updating apps from actual, born people can be a bit irritating- should we start enabling the ability to tweet for twitterers in utero?
When I read about the Kickbee (>gag<) “Tummy Tweeter,” I was a combination of already bored and kind of grossed out. As a parent myself, I’m not anti parents blogging, tweeting or generally being involved in social media, nor do I think that parenting should be a taboo topic in that medium. But this is just kind of gross and horribly self absorbed as a concept. Says Inhabitots :
Baby’s movements are captured by a microcontroller in the Kickbee, which transmits the signals wirelessly to a computer program. The software then analyzes the movement to determine if it was a kick. Kicks can be shared on Twitter or as text messages via Twitter.
The device, created by (of course) an expectant father named Corey Menscher, fits across a knocked up lady’s midsection kind of like a fetal monitor. It’s meant to keep dads in the loop while they’re away at work or otherwise not experiencing every glorious second of the pregnancy ordeal. But at the risk of sounding old, my husband got through two whole stretches of being an expectant dad blissfully not knowing exactly when the kid kicked me in the ribs. You know who also didn’t know about that? Everyone I know. Not only was it kind of unpleasant, but seriously, does anyone care enough to read it on Twitter? (Or even as a text message, the other option for transmitting baby kick info.)
Also not surprising- Twitter updates of fetal kicks aren’t the only thing in the pipeline. In the same vein, from the same inventor:
The Burbee, a burp cloth that transmits the warmth of your little one to Dad through a special heater-equipped button down shirt that he wears; and the Bathbee, which uses a rubber ducky receiver in your tots tub to transmit the scent of baby oil to a children’s lunchbox turned air freshener.
