A collection of recent announcement in the “brain games” or “brain training games” space:

The Wii sets new generational standards for the videogame industry

• “The ageing of the Japanese population compelled gamemaker Nintendo to widen its audience. Now, the Wii is leading the industry standards. But hardcore gamers are still too important to be neglected.”

Strain your brain the smart way

• “George Harrison, Nintendo’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications, has said that more than half of the company’s marketing for Wii is aimed at adults. And the system has been presented at conventions for the aging “gray gamer” population.” and talks about sudoku, Brain Age, Big Brain Academy, and more.

SBT Announces the Acquisition of Quixit

• “Scientific Brain Training (”SBT”), based in Lyon, France, today has announced that Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s now exercise our Frontal Lobes (that deal with working memory and attention, among other things) and Parietal Lobes (visual interpretation). (Basic brain anatomy here)

Quick! Count the number of times the number “6″ appears below (you may need to scroll down).

Then, count the total of both “3″s and “7″s, trying to add the total number of both as you see either (this is, don’t just count all the “3″s, and then the “7″s)

1234467889974674657865876576576 3576573625432657346578436578342 2732188582735827456724687343828 7672878682768723682376783768267 2647648823178346432764876774653 7436574386581483627868653873465

The Answer appears as a comment below. The most important thing here is not to get the right answer, but to try. This type of exercise has been used by the military to improve attention for decades (now there are more advanced, computer-based, tools, but this keeps being fun).