The Wall Street Journal reports that DreamBox — along with other web-based learning game sites like SmartyCard, Brightstorm and Grockit — is closing the gap between between a child's expected math performance and actual math performance. It's also dragging the outdated edutainment games of yesteryear into the MySpace-oriented generation with it's big, bright fairies and ominous improper fractions.

The Journal writes:

The online educational industry has been getting a big boost from venture capital firms. Last year, about $1 billion was invested in learning technology companies, according to Ambient Insight, a market research firm focusing on education and technology. That's up from $850.6 million invested in 2007.

Jeez, soon kids won't even have to go to school anymore. And what gives with the 6-year-old not being assigned homework? If I had to go to school, why couldn't I have gone to a school like that?

Pursuing an Academic Edge at Home [Wall Street Journal]

DreamBox Learning launches its new site today, featuring an Amazon.com-ish interface for teachers to navigate its math programs games. A monthly subscription to the site comes at $49 $12.95 a pop, compared to the $20 a month Indian Math Online charges for its interactive lessons.

The difference here is the fun factor, supposedly. Lou Gray, DreamBox Learning’s chief executive officer, tells the New York Times that his company has perfected the balance between learning and gaming so kids won’t get bored.

“The hallmark of the product is it’s real math, but children think it’s a game,” he said.

Good luck fooling the little guys and gals, I say. You might want to work at hiding the equations, though. All the fairies and elves in the world don’t distract from the visual horror that is an improper fraction.

Start-Up Uses Online Games to Teach Math

Ever since the beta for Littlebigplanet hit, we've seen numerous level designs, some good, some not so good. From classic Mario remakes to re-imagining of the humongous spectacles found in Shadow of the Colossus. Heck, even Tristan is a game designer in the making. But simply from an engineering standpoint, I think this is by far and away the best yet. A user created a real-time working calculator that accurately adds and subtracts numbers. The level is said to use 610 magnetic switches, 500 wires, and 430 pistons. I didn't see what the big deal was until the camera panned up. That's when my mouth hit the floor.

Thanks to everyone, and I mean everyone, who sent this in!

The BBPS reports that a crafty New York math teacher has been using Link and his triangle-loving ways to sneak a little edu-ma-cation into his students. Am I the only one slightly confused by the description?

Legend of Zelda Used to Teach the Little Ones [The BBPS]

Kyle Orland, formerly of Video Game Media Watch, currently of Joystiq, and now the Media Coverage Columnist over at Game Daily, reviewed a year's worth of Electronic Gaming Monthly's Quartermann rumor mill, to see how it does at predicting things to come in the gaming industry.

Orland reviewed the rumors that appeared in the columns that ran from January to December of 2003. He decided to go back that far to make sure he would be able to accurately track whether they turned out to be true or not.

To deal with the plethora of issues that pop up when someone tries to score the accuracy of a bunch of subjective rumors, Orland scored each rumor outcome on a scale of one to five. With one being completely false and five being completely true.

The end result? EGM's rumor ramblings score a 3.1 out of 5 or a bit more than 50 percent (As the big O pointed out to me, his scale starts at one not zero). While Orland says that means that the rumors are right a bit more than half of the time, that sounds like failing in my book.

Hit up the post for the Excel sheet that shows all of the nitty gritty and his thought process. I hope we see more of these in the future. The only thing I like better than statistics and games is the wonderful blending of peanut butter and chocolate. Brian Crecente

Rumor Report Ratings [Media Coverage]

I had a chance to speak with Sony Computer Entertainment of America spokesman Dave Karraker last night about the sales. (He said he called because he felt sorry for me and my gimpy broken hand. ) Karraker said they heard within minutes of the nationwide GameStop sell-outs and that they were very happy with the news.

"It reconfirms the excitement and anticipation that we've known since we first discuss the PlayStation 3," he said. "We're just pleased to see that the reaction from the consumer is as strong as we anticipated it would be. It helps to validate everything we have been saying up to this point."

While he wouldn't tell me the break-down of which chains were getting what in the way of Playstation 3s, simple math shows that if Sony comes through on their 400,000 console promise to North America, that there are still more than 340,000 left to buy.

So far, so smooth. Brian Crecente

There are tons of these vids floating around the Intertubes, making me think that there either a lot of people really good at math or a lot of people good at cheating. Regardless, I'm amazed the game can read this guy's chicken scrawl, because mine causes it to go haywire. That, and when I say "blue." Brian Ashcraft

Cathode Tan discovered this odd little image of a Pac-Man card game, circa 80-something. Like CT, I had no idea such a thing existed, nor did I have any idea how it plays. But according to the inside box instructionsBoard Game Geek, it looks even unbearably lame than it's source game, in which you try to add, subtract or multiply your way to high-points. A math game. How droll. Florian Eckhardt

Perhaps in the wake of Sony's claims that their Playstation Portable outsold the Nintendo DS in the US, Nintendo released some sales figures today.

In the year and a half since its launch, more than 21 million DSes have been sold worldwide. To put things in perspective, Apple only managed to ship one million iPods in the first 19 months. I hesitate to use Nintendo Math, since they tend to use things like business hours and such, but according to their mathematicians that works out to one DS sold ever two seconds "non-stop, since launch."

So in the time it took me to sit here and ponder the color of the sky, 20 DSes sold. Brian Crecente

This week around we're giving out the Nintendo WiFi pack. Here's what you'll win: A Polar White DS Lite, DS Lite case, Mario Kart DS, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Metroid Prime Hunters.

To enter you need to email your answer to kotakucontest@gmail.com with the answer in the subject line. Make sure the answer is in the subject line, as in the... subject line.

OK, here's the question, it's a multipart math problem. Seriously.

First: How much was the Alienware computer I priced out while looking into replacing my dead, dead, dead desktop.

Second: The date I went and checked out the PSP Kiosk and wrote it up... converted into a Julian date (Go ahead and put all zeros for the time.)

Third: The total cost of all of the Guinness beers shown in the picture Florian took with the Black DS Lite he secured for our final contest. Round the price to the nearest dollar, U.S. dollar. (Yes, you're going to have to sorta guesstimate on this one)

Finally: Take all of those number, multiply them by one another, get their square root and then divide by 10,000.

The closest answer wins, in the case of a tie we will do a random drawing to select the winner. Make sure your answer includes five decimal places, just to make sure you're as close as possible.

We'll select the winner next weekend. Brian Crecente

Oh boy, bar graphs! A whole new way to poke fun at the PS3. Tech site Effectu has a pretty tangerine article about the PS3's outlandish pricing, and how it may spell failure:

After doing some analysis of historical console sales and pricing, it has become clear that the price of the Playstation 3 may have crossed over a very dangerous line. Basically, in the past, any console over $400 tanked. By far, the most success has come to consoles in the $190 to $300 range. Obviously there is inflation, but the cost of electronics has continuously declined over time, so console prices have remained fairly consistent. The question is will the price of the PS3 hinder its sales?

I say "yes". At this point I'm not even planning on buying one, and it's rare that I hear from people who are. Although I am so jaded now by this continuous stream of Sony screwups that I'm almost starting to root for them again. Just to see them beat the odds.

Then I remember the PSP keyboard. And my eyes grow red and slitted with hate. Eliza Gauger

Sony's PS3 is in the Pricing Danger Zone [Effectu, via Digg]

They're skeptical. Who wouldn't be? Based upon past evidence, the assumption is that Sony needs to put together 10 million PS3s in order to have enough supply to meet demand in all territories. The Guardian estimates that this would require Sony to have already begun production of the PS3 and to produce a million consoles a month from January to November. That's 50,000 per day.

But has production already started? How could it, with Blu-Ray still being an unagreed standard? Developers don't even have final dev kits.

We're doing to put on our Criswell turban here and predict there is no way Sony can make enough consoles for a world-wide launch in November. So if Sony sticks to that launch date, expect another 360 fiasco, children.

Can Sony manage a global PS3 roll-out? Let's 'do the math' [Guardian Gamesblog]