Barbie becomes Computer Engineer
Computer Engineer Barbie comes equipped with laptop, smartphone, Bluetooth headset, and 'flat watch' - whatever that is.
As revealed on the official website (warning, it's a PDF), every little girls' favourite vacuous blonde's 126th career is that of Computer Engineer - complete with "a shiny laptop" on which to do some 1337 code hacking.
Interestingly, the change of career appears to have given Barbie myopia, as she now comes equipped with "stylish pink-frame glasses" which she hasn't needed in any of her previous 125 careers - but stereotypes aside, Computer Engineer Barbie comes equipped with everything a modern geek girl needs: "a Barbie® smart phone, fashionable laptop case, flat watch and Bluetooth earpiece," alongside the aforementioned laptop making her "ready to conquer the day's tasks on the go or from her desk."
For those who are afraid that Barbie's journey into the world of computer science would mean she would have to give up on her noted sense of fashion, good news: Computer Engineer Barbie comes dressed in "a t-shirt featuring binary code and [a ] computer/keyboard icon along with a pair of black knit skinny pants," designed to be "representative of a real computer engineer."
Better yet, those deciding to buy Computer Engineer Barbie get "a special code to unlock exclusive online game content on Barbie.com," in order to "further experience the reality of being a computer engineer" - which is to say, playing on-line Flash games.
In all seriousness, the latest Barbie to come out of the Mattel factories has the thumbs-up from some pretty influential people in the computer science industry: no less than Nora Lin, the president of the Society of Women Engineers, believes that "as a computer engineer, Barbie will show girls that women can design products that have an important and positive impact on people's everyday lives, such as inventing a technology to conserve home energy or programming a newborn monitoring device."
The Computer Engineer Barbie is currently available for pre-order directly from Mattel, and will be hitting shops towards the end of this year.
Are you pleased to see Barbie getting a more modern career choice, or is the plastic wonder doing more harm than good to the cause of women in engineering? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Previous Article
46 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyComputer Engineer Barbie looks hot.
;D
How is Barbie worthy of a Bit Tech news slot?
I work in shorts, t-shirt, and flip-flops :p
I've also come to work in my PJs a few times.. best part of being a programmer, there's no dress code most of the time.
Maybe it's cause the T-Shirt doesn't say something like:
C:/Dos
C:/Dos/Run
Run/Dos/Run
Of course she's also clearly anorexic, which doesn't really help.
"I'm here to run an important diagnostic on your hard drive ken" said Barbie
"Gimmesome sugar baby!" said Ken
Then their system suffered a serious hard drive failure which resulted in a huge order from an important customer was lost costing Ken's company millions of dollars.
You see Mattel what happens when you put hot chicks in IT jobs!
LMFAO +1 rep for that, sir!
... closer to reality perhaps ... http://www.damnfunnypictures.com/weird/14000/fat-barbie-doll/
Thinking about it, maybe that's why the missus goes to bed early! Damn Barbie to hell :-0
*sigh*
It's not like they're suddenly going to do a weekly feature article on the best barbie accessory (though this would be fun to remember for April Fools in a few months)
I still don't like how she gives unrealistic impressions of beauty to young girls though. But, *shrug*.
Slow day?
This is far better news than the new apple shiny thing iTampax or whatever teh hell it's called. Barbie should be getting far more "column inches" than she is currently getting.
Sorry, the innuendo is cumming thick and fast. D'oh!
Because she now looks a female version of Alex?
Keep your fantasies to yourself! lol
If it said that, I'd be buying one for my youngest daughter already :D
I think that would actually make the first funny and cool Barbie to ever happen to the entire line. I thank the gods often that my girls arn't into Barbie.
Yeah.....right.
Now the girls can play with their barbie while working on their networks!
Ok babrie I am in dos now trying to get my network fixed
netstat
ipconfig
hum the site still does not work...
flushdns
ok there it goes thanks barbie!
anyways i think people are making a big deal out of nothing, is barbie even that popular now as compared to things like facebook and farmville? I think girls spend a lot more leisure time on those activities these days than barbie.
no, in-your-endo
Shame on you for lowering the tone of this topic!
Yep I'm the one that brought down the tone of the thread
Totaly agree with this statement! It would never happen in a million years, like 95 pecent of the world population (girls) are into shoes and handbags, I would like to meet the person that thought of this, any bets on it being a bloke???
lol OMG so true.... I know that sounds a bit racist but facts are facts lol.
I'm not picking on you here, most posters have missed the point of this announcement or are simply lacking some background information...
Mattel held an open vote allowing its customers and interested parties to chose the next iteration in the Barbie series, many apparently voted for News Anchor Barbie but a significant number of votes were also cast for Computer Engineer... A strange choice in the world of 5 year old girls but these votes did not come from 5 year old girls, they resulted from the popularity of a social network campaign which may, or may not have originated on Reddit.
In the spirit of Mister_Splashy_Pants, TED video link, a campaign was started in response to the Mattel open vote, a campaign designed to divert Mattel from the stereotypical choice. As the campaign originated on an IT/Tech. site the goal was inevitably IT/Tech. related. Computer Engineer Barbie is the direct result of an experiment in Web2.0 social networking and the influence it can have on even the largest and most traditional corporations. I suggest this makes the news not only relevant but also very interesting, even to those of us lacking a Barbie fetish. I can't comment on the Mattel sales pitch or indeed Gareth's reasons for posting ;)
BTW, the binary on her top spells out Barbie if converted to ASCII.
http://www.theretroworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/novus4_3.jpg
I guess...
Ken was asking her to do something to do with overclocking in that porno I saw but I really wasn't paying attention to what they were talking about for some reason. Boy, could she overclock!
There we go, topic back on track!