Carnegie Mellon University researchers hope Web surfers will spend their free time playing Internet-based games to help other people's and businesses' computers get smarter.

The researchers have launched a site with five games designed to help computers with tasks they can't automatically do. The tasks include improving computer searches for images or audio clips.

For example, if you search on the Web for "sad songs," a search engine will generally show you links to audio files containing "sad" in the filename. But by getting people to describe audio clips as sad in online games like Tag a Tune, researchers can improve searches for audio files.

Other games include ESP, in which opposing players are shown a picture and try to guess what words the other player will use to describe the image.

Players don't communicate with one another or see one another's answers; the games tell them just that they've made a match.

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West Virginia sealed up its presidential choices last night as the nation -- at last -- nears the end of the primary season. We've been waiting all these months to find out who will lead each party to the final matchup in November, but while examining all those delegate maps, we've also gotten a geography lesson. So shouldn't everyone be able to ace this know-your-states test?

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Are you a Scrabble addict? Using the site www.scrabulous.com/ you can play an online game and connect with friends—even if they are miles away. Sign up on the site, invite friends to play, and have fun, without having to keep track of pieces, or clean up when you’re done. And, since the game is online, it’s much easier to get help. Type in your tiles here and the site will tell you all of the different word combinations you can use. Yeah, it’s sort of cheating, but if you’re really in a pinch, or you’re just trailing in points, it can prove useful.

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Did you hear about the bumper crop of spaghetti from trees in Switzerland? Or the purchase of the Liberty Bell by the Taco Bell Corp.? If not, you've missed some of the top 100 April Fools’ Day hoaxes “as judged by notoriety, absurdity and number of people duped.” You can find inspiration for your own pranks as the calendar turns to April today — or just a chance to be amazed at what people will believe — by checking out all 100. In a dark mood? You'll also find a list of the 10 worst pranks of the day.

Readers thinking of pulling a joke at the office may want to review Dawn Anfuso's recent Workwise column from the Breeze. “There's no doubt that when employees get along and have some fun at work, more work actually gets done,” she writes. But the wrong prank with the wrong people can land you in hot water. And that's no joke.

For some serious history and speculation on how April Fools’ Day came to be in the first place, check out this site.

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Kite fliers take to the skies — well, at least the kites do, anyway — at the Redondo Beach pier Sunday. The pier hosts the 34th annual Festival of the Kite, a free event taking place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Kite-flying experts show off their stuff for prizes and audience delight. Kites are also on sale at Sunday’s event. Non-kite activities include a hot-dog-eating competition and music provided by a band from Bishop Montgomery High in Torrance.

Redondo Beach’s Sunshine Kite Company sponsors the festival.

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How can two lines that look like different lengths be the same? They say your eyes are lying to you, but what if that’s a lie? At lottolab, you can see the illusion and the proof in a series of images based on brightness, form and color. Each example is accompanied by a “mask” that confirms that what you see, really isn’t what’s there.

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Witwords is “absotively posilutely” the most fun when it comes to words. Not your normal dictionary, Witwords has hundreds of words that, well, SHOULD be in the dictionary!

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I got a children's clothing catalog today that has an art contest in it. We normally try not to do shameless plugs for companies in this blog, but I figured with the rain and all, you might need something to amuse the kids, so here it is.

BodenUSA is having a Monster Design contest. You have your kids (or yourself, I guess) draw a monster that would work in the clothing company's building, write a job description for it, and mail it in. They'll choose three winners, design a T-shirt with your monster on it and send it to you, along with $500 worth of clothes.

You can see some samples of the monsters the Boden designers have done on the company's Web site. And if you want an idea of what kind of drawings win, check out the winners from the UK contest.

Send your drawing, monster's job description, the artist's name and age, address, phone and email address and send it to:
Monster of a Competition
JP Boden USA LLC
180 Armstrong Road
Pittston, PA 18640

It has to be there by Feb. 15, 2008.

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Richard “Rich” Knerr, the co-founder of the company that brought us the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip ’N Slide and the Hacky Sack, died this week at the age of 82.

While the Hula Hoop was arguably Wham-O’s most popular product (“No sensation has ever swept the country like the Hula Hoop,” Richard A. Johnson wrote in his 1985 book “American Fads”), demand for it ebbed quickly (“because every household in America had two and they lasted forever”), and the multimillion-dollar company is credited with introducing hundreds of other toys.

Here are some of their products, with links to videos of some of the commercials that helped make them famous:
- Water Wiggle (introduced in 1962)
- Wheelie Bar (introduced in 1964)
- Super Ball and Super Elastic Bubble Plastic (introduced in 1966)
- Silly String (introduced in 1972)
- Bubble Thing (introduced in 1984)

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The makers of Scrabble are in a scrap over a free online version that is one of the most popular applications on Facebook. El Segundo-based Mattel and Hasbro announced Wednesday that they’ve sent cease-and-desist notices to the parties behind “Scrabulous,” and they hope an agreement can be reached. Otherwise, Hasbro says it will shut down what it calls “an illegally copied version of the world’s most popular word game.”

So what’s a Scrabulous fan to do?

Check out the free Scrabble-inspired games Scrabble Blast and Scrabble Rack Attack. (How many words can you make from a rack of seven letters?)

Join the “Save Scrabulous” group on Facebook (you must be a registered Facebook member to do this).

Give old-school Scrabble and socializing a try by joining a club or entering a tournament. Find some at the National Scrabble Association’s Web site.

Bide your time and wait for a resolution while building your skills with the official Scrabble dictionary — also a useful tool for settling word challenges — and the word builder — which will help you make sense of those difficult tiles.

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They used to be in the corners of arcades, in the back of restaurants and alongside walls at laundromats. But slowly, the classic games have become almost obsolete. If you're looking to reminisce on the days of moving a silver ball around with flippers, try out this link, which offers an array of different pinball games that you can play for free online.

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Is King Kong taller than Godzilla? Are white chocolate and caviar tasty together? Test your senses and challenge your instincts.

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While there are plenty of games online to play, this one is a bit different. While you're playing, not only will you get smarter, but you'll also help stop world hunger! FreeRice has two simple goals: 1) Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free, 2) Help end world hunger by providing rice to starving people for free. Every time you guess the correct definition of a word, sponsors of the Web site will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Click here to start playing and feed the hungry.

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AddictingGames is a big source of free online games including arcade games, action games, sports games, puzzle games, flash games and more. Updated every weekday with lots of new games on Friday.

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A recent study found that three-fourths of parents rarely or never play videogames with their kids. But as all you parents begin your holiday shopping, you'll probably see some videogame titles on your kids' wish lists. What will you do if you find yourself at the store wondering what "Rated M for mature" means or what "E for everyone" means? Have you ever played an M-rated game? If not, you can shop prepared with unbiased information from www.whattheyplay.com. Search by game title, console or rating -- and figure out the lingo used in the gaming world. It's a fairly new Web site but is already quite detailed; expect this one to become a fantastic resource for parents of gamers. Also, gamers who can spare a minute away from "Halo 3" may want to check out what the next big thing in videogames will be. For gaming-industry news and more, check out www.joystiq.com.

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Express your doodle; doodle your expressions. And share them with the world. Sketchcast.com lets you draw anything you'd like and, if you'd like, do a voiceover to explain it. You can post it on your blog or create a channel so everyone you know can tune in to your sketches. Why? Who knows. But you'd be in good company: Some of the U.S.'s greatest presidents are well known for their doodles. Check this link for more on that: www.presidentialdoodles.com.

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Just because you're at work doesn't mean you have to miss out on the Halloween fun. Take a break for a game of Hangman. Not your regular word game, this one is presided over by a skeleton with an attitude and all the words are Halloween related. Put on your thinking cap (or witches hat?) and get started here.

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