Orangutans show off video game skills at Atlanta zoo

While they don't yet appear to have tried their hand at Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, a pair of orangutans at Zoo Atlanta have recently started to hone their skills at some slightly simpler fare, which some IBM workers developed for the zoo in their time off. Apparently designed to study the cognitive skills of the primates, the games involve drawing pictures with the touchscreen, picking out identical photographs, and matching orangutan sounds to the proper picture. For each correct answer, the orangutans are rewarded with a food pellet -- something Nintendo would be wise to consider for its next console.

[Via FARK, photo courtesy of Gene Blythe/AP]

[Matt @ Apr 13th 2007 10:15AM]

I think most Nintendo players are smarter than Orangutans... but Sony might be wise to have a food dispenser in their next console.

[Ray-- @ Apr 13th 2007 10:28AM]

LOL this reminds me of the people I see at McDonalds ordering *their* food from a similiar device... maybe we were the beta testers for this monkey version...

http://tinyurl.com/2zwsaq

[James @ Apr 13th 2007 10:28AM]

Wait.. I thought Sony's was already a food dispenser. It cuts the fat!!

[Don @ Apr 13th 2007 10:31AM]

Wii...would like to eat.
(bowing orangutans)

[Todd @ Apr 13th 2007 10:51AM]

No, no - the picture is of the guy that always writes:

"I am teh f1rst 2 comm3nt!"

...here on engadget.

[Joel Rossel @ Apr 13th 2007 11:20AM]

those orangutans are going to be the first non-humans to get carpul tunnel.

[Kev50027 @ Apr 13th 2007 11:46AM]

Aren't obsessive gamers already disproportionally overweight compared to the national average?

[Pat @ Apr 13th 2007 11:51AM]

Now if the monkey does anything bad or gets fat the trainers can blame it on the videogame.

[Joe @ Apr 13th 2007 11:54AM]

I'm pretty sure he's testing out the lastest electronic voting machine. The company making them determined orangutans were ideal test subjects as their IQs were on par with most voters.

[Ben H @ Apr 13th 2007 12:04PM]

There should definitely be some "caption of the day" contest with this pic.

"Wtf, no 1M:1. These IBM guys are newbs."

[jakespeed @ Apr 13th 2007 12:06PM]

So easy, an orangutan can do it?

[Rebel @ Apr 13th 2007 12:13PM]

Headline: Video games makes orangutans to be violent.

[TIMMAH! @ Apr 13th 2007 12:13PM]

Yeah great, now we got a whole 'nother species wasting away in front of the TV playing video games. This has got to be de-evolution, right?

[ScooterDE @ Apr 13th 2007 12:21PM]

the programmers got time off? what's the world coming to?!

[guilt+1 @ Apr 13th 2007 12:22PM]

It's a hell of a come-down from Flight Sims and Space travel. Still if playing snap is all you've got.

[Brad @ Apr 13th 2007 12:23PM]

hmm.. continue in english... ok... transfer funds... from money market... to primary checking... hmm.. guess $1500 should be enough... yes for receipt... okay, done

[Crayola @ Apr 13th 2007 12:47PM]

So when is Creative going to introduce a new range of gamers oriented gear for orangutans, with such poor sales, it could very well turn around their business!

[RyS @ Apr 13th 2007 1:10PM]

It's amazing to see what type of comments people make after they've read an article about orangutans.

You all must have a list of orangutan conversation pieces (and cheesy jokes) written on a paper, just for situations just like this.

Keep it up every! ;-)

[Joe @ Apr 13th 2007 1:48PM]

How about a mild shock to the nads of Bill Gates every time windows crashes or hardware fails to work with Vista cause of driver issues...

[anonymous @ Apr 13th 2007 2:26PM]

I'd pay for that!

[Aaron @ Apr 13th 2007 1:59PM]

Ah, the annoying Halo 2 players on Xbox Live finally have a face... You little bastards.

[stu @ Sep 14th 2007 5:10PM]

I'd be worried if they actually were given any Donkey Kong title to play. It might inspire some sort of revolt.

[dbatreja @ Aug 9th 2008 2:42AM]

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Just go the website & click on 'Online Store'.

It's worth collecting.

Thank you for your support.

Regards,
Deepak Batreja
www.iloveorangutan.com