Remember when that computer asked Matthew Broderick “Do you want to play a game?” in it’s cold electronic tones? Yeah, this is like that, minus Broderick. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers holds a symposium every year on Computational Intelligence and Games. Sounds innocent enough. But part of the symposium is a kind of “Turing Test” challenge, in which contestants program an AI to play a videogame. The objective is to trick a panel of human judges into thinking the AI is a human player.

This year’s videogame is DEFCON, the nuclear war strategy game from Introversion. Good idea? Probably not. I liked this better when it was just a stupid 80s movie.

Vail Christian High School is educating students about the dangers of texting while driving. Students hold the motion sensitive wheel in one hand, and a cell phone in the other. It’s unclear if they are required to drive as Toad, Mario, or anyone else. But were they sorry when they ended up getting hit by a turtle shell? Did they learn not to text while driving?

Apparently some did. One player said, “I ran into a lot of things and it was very stressful,” Which is interesting, because how stressful can texting and Mario Kart really be? Still, I’m sure it drives the point home to these kids.

There’s always typing software to help improve your skills, but for some people, easy learning comes from a good keyboard. Like the Look & Learn Keyboard from KeyRight. It’s for beginners who want to get faster.

The keys have been color-coded so that you can differentiate between eight finger zones. You still need some software to help, so the Look & Learn keyboard ships with its own interactive learning software. It’s compatible with both Mac and Windows and will retail for $40. If this is not up your alley and seems too hard, try the Keyboard for blondes.

For those who want to train their fish to do all kinds of un-fish-like stuff, check out this R2 Fish School Training Kit that’s got nothing to do with R2-D2. I’m guessing it’s for those who want to enter there fish in the fish Olympics. It was created by noted fish-training expert, Dr. Dean Pomerleau and the R2 Solutions team.

The kit employs basic marine mammal training techniques. Basically if you promise them food, they’ll do all kinds of tricks. Who knew? It’s like the whole What Would You Do For A Klondike Bar?, but with fish. Your little pets will learn how to limbo, slalom, fetch, play basketball, jump through hoops, and more. If the fish Olympics don’t exist yet, they will soon and I’ll be right there betting on guppies playing Basketball. At least until various steroids scandals hit. $39.95 gets you into the shady world of fish training.

Products that are designed to help you learn how to use the toilet are funny. Mostly because you should know how to use the toilet by now. Potty Monkey is awesome. This 15-inch tall stuffed monkey comes complete with a pair of diapers, a pair of underwear and his toilet. An electronic timer is buried somewhere in his rectum body and can be set at intervals of 30 or 90 minutes. When the clock runs out, the monkey will tell you he needs to go potty. When you place him on the toilet he won’t shut up about it. He’ll tell you how much better he feels, and will even sing a version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, except his version is all about dukey and yule-logs. Don’t think you can just ignore him like a bad parent either.

If you do, he will just plead more. “I really need to go potty! Let’s go potty!!” Ignore him again, and he says, “Hey, take me to the potty now or I’ll have an accident!” After that, “Oh no! I had an accident! Please take me to the potty next time.” No…I will not take you to the potty. You are not my son. You are a bad monkey who somehow ended up in my home and feels free to crap himself at the drop of a hat.