I Are Smart

OK, I was reading one of my new favorite blogs tonight, TechCrunch. They report on all sorts of cool developments in the world of technology (my only complaint is that I sometimes have a hard time keeping up!).

Anyway, one of the articles tonight was about a site called Lumosity, a creation of Lumos Labs. What does it do? It provides a series of "brain games" supposedly designed to help improve your cognitive health.

For a person like me who loves puzzles and used to spend hours playing Tetris back in college, it's like crack cocaine.

The games aren't particularly difficult. The trick is just to beat your own score. I only cleared the first session (so far), in which I had to complete three different games. In one, the computer presented me with a grid representing a garden. Briefly, I saw a series of monsters hidden in some of the grid cells. I then had to walk my little gardener character through the cells without stepping on one of the monsters. When I succeeded, I could earn bonus points if I could remember which monster was where.

I know, not exactly "Halo 2", but I still had fun.

Lumosity is currently in beta and therefore free. I only noticed one small bug: In the Spatial Speed Match game, I couldn't turn off the annoying sound effects. Other than that though, the game play was pretty smooth.

You might want to give it a try, if your afternoon Sudoku is starting to get a little old.

It's good for your brain, too!

So, what is your high score in "Speed Match"?