Consumer Confidential: New Benjamins, money for Mom, brain games

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Here’s your whip-it-good Wednesday roundup of consumer news from around the Web:

--It’s all about the Benjamins. A high-tech makeover of the $100 bill is in the works, making some of our relentlessly dull money a little more lively and, hopefully, keeping counterfeiters at bay. The new and improved C-note has more color and a special security ribbon that’s designed to make it easier to spot phonies. The turbo-charged $100 bill joins the $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills in getting pimped. There are no plans to give poor old George Washington and the $1 bill a little queer-eye action.

--And if you’ve got one of those nifty new Benjamins, maybe you’ll want to spend it on Mom. Market researcher BIGresearch says consumers are likely to plunk down a bit more on Mom this year than last year when Mother’s Day rolls around (that would be on May 9 -- heads up). Turns out Mother’s Day is the second-biggest consumer-spending holiday after the winter holidays. The average gift this year will be $126.90, with a grand total of nearly $15 billion being spent. We dads, of course, will settle for whatever table scraps come our way in June.

--Parents have been telling their kids for years that brain games make you smarter. But a new study finds that kids might just as well be playing Mario Kart. Researchers in Britain compared people who play brain games online with those who play more entertainment-oriented video games. Then they gave everyone an IQ test. Turns out there was no appreciable difference between those who’d put on their thinking caps and those who were just goofing around. Be that as it may, I’ll still make my kid play me in chess at least once a week. What could it hurt?

-- David Lazarus