SAN NARCISO, Calif. (Bennington Vale Evening Transcript) -- Like most 18-year-olds in the county, Ty Ostrid of Santa Calcetines prides himself on staying current with emerging trends in technology. This Christmas, Ostrid received the newest Apple MacBook Pro, an iPad 2 and the recently released iPhone 4S. "As I begin college, these smart devices will help me with school and keep me from getting bored," Ostrid said. "You know, I used to think you could do nearly everything on them -- read books, play games, listen to music, email your family, manage your social networks, shoot video for YouTube and a whole bunch of other things. But after New Year's Eve, I realized that they can do everything."

Ostrid's revelation came when his great aunt called him at midnight on December 31 to wish him a happy New Year's Eve.

"Seriously, man, I freaked out," Ostrid told reporters. "I was slogging my way through this intense marathon session of Words with Friends against Barry on the other couch -- oh, and posting pictures on Twitter of my drunk ass brother trying to get the goldfish high -- and the iPhone starts making this weird noise."

The noise, it turned out, was the tone from an incoming call.

Ostrid, who confesses to remaining slightly amazed at the discovery, explained: "On the display was a picture of my aunt and her name. This big green button told me to answer. So I pressed it. Next thing you know -- I kid you not -- I'm talking to my aunt. I mean, it's her. Live. It's not Siri reading an email back to me. My folks told me about how people used to have telephones in the house and would talk directly to other people, but wow. I had no idea the iPhone could do that."

As Ostrid finished the conversation with his aunt, still reeling from the shock, he began wandering around the party to tell his other friends about the incident.

"And that was crazy weird too," Ostrid said. "I had been texting them the whole time, but then I realized I could walk right up and talk to them. What the hell? There's all this stuff in the world I just didn't know about."

Ostrid believes that these new, more direct forms of interpersonal communication could catch on, but he still reserves some skepticism: "It's really cool and all, but change is slow, you know? Maybe things'll move in that direction. For now, I'll keep playing with it. I'm thinking of starting a website to promote the idea. Get a bunch of beta users together and put them in a room to see what happens. I had sort of a killer name: Dialogger 2.0. We'll see. It's all so overwhelming. It's not easy to stop communicating in the normal way. Communication is second nature; it's inherent in us. Ever try picking up a new language? It's rough, man. But if I could find a way to really market this, I could be the guy who kills Facebook. And that'd be freaking sweet."

(c) 2011. See disclaimers.