Now you can use this century's greatest gadget to do battle with last century's most-beloved geek toy.

A new iPhone app called CubeCheater helps you solve the classic Rubik's Cube puzzle toy using a mix of sophisticated algorithms and simple image-recognition technology. CubeCheater sells for $1 in the App Store.

Here's how it works. You take six pictures of your mixed up Rubik's Cube using the iPhone's camera — one photo per side. If you have an iPod Touch, you can also tap in the color combos manually. CubeCheater is able to recognize the placement of each colored square and generate a map of your cube. It then figures out the quickest path to solving the puzzle and gives you a set of easy-to-follow, step-by-step instructions.

Using software to solve Rubik's Cube isn't new. Mathematicians have been bending their brains into virtual cubes since the toy's debut in the late 1970s, but the math behind the puzzle-solving continues to evolve.

The current guru of Rubik's computer algorithms is Herbet Kociemba, creator of the open source Cube Explorer software program. Kociemba's solver software is currently used by computer science students at universities to build cube-solving robots, some of which also use a camera and image-recognition tech to figure out the color patterns.

CubeCheater uses Kociemba's algorithm to solve scrambled cubes. The app can also be tweaked to solve cubes with nonstandard color variations. CubeCheater even works in reverse; create a virtual mixed up cube inside the app, and it will tell you how to twist a solved cube to match your creation. Could be useful in making pretty geometric patterns.

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Posted By: KC Hill - Category: Cellphones, Toys

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James Bond Gadgets for You

February 15th 2008 01:47

Finally we all get 007 Gizmos.

007 soars to new heights

Who didn’t dream of being James Bond when they first saw a 007 film? Well maybe not everybody, but I certainly did. Along with the obvious perks of being the smartest, most ruggedly handsome and deadliest male in the room there was one thing even more appealing to a 12 year old boy, the gadgets.

The magnetised wristwatch in Live and Let Die, the lethal briefcase in From Russia with Love, some of the Bond gadgets even inspired real life technology like the miniature underwater breathing apparatus in Thunderball.

It seems Q branch had the endless imagination and scientific cunning to engineer some of the most coincidentally practical devices to help the man with the license to kill accomplish his assignments.

Sure the submariner Lotus Esprit and machine gun packing Aston Martin DB7 were cool too, but it was always those little technological marvels that inspired wonder and often saved JB.

The recognizable Corgi Lotus Esprit

The toy company Corgi has held the rights to manufacturing 007 toys and memorabilia since before that white Lotus die cast model with all the extras made it’s way into my small hands.

Over at MI6.co.uk they had field agent on the job at the 2008 UK Toy Fair for the unveiling of Corgi’s latest range. Revealing a selection of wiz bang gizmo’s aimed squarely at the tech savvy adult.