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"Universal Jigsaw Puzzle" Hits Stores In Japan

Riktov writes "I came across this at a Tokyo toy store last week, and it's one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Jigazo Puzzle is a jigsaw puzzle, but you can make anything with it. It has just 300 pieces which are all just varying shades of a single color, though a few have gradations across the piece; i.e., each piece is a generic pixel. Out of the box, you can make Mona Lisa, JFK, etc, arranging it according to symbols printed on the reverse side. But here's the amazing thing: take a photo (for example, of yourself) with a cell-phone, e-mail it to the company, and they will send you back a pattern that will recreate that photo. This article is in Japanese, but as they say, a few pictures are worth a million words. And 300 pixels are worth an infinite number of pictures."

21 of 241 comments (clear)

  1. puzzle? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Not much of a puzzle if you can assemble the pieces in any orientation and layout you wish.

  2. Looks familiar by aBaldrich · · Score: 2, Funny

    The puzzle version of ascii art?

    --
    In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
    1. Re:Looks familiar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Racist!

  3. Sweet by Narpak · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now tell me the pattern for creating an image of unspeakable evil; like the Great Cthulhu.
    Cthulhu fhtagn! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia! Ia! Ia! The sleeper awakens!

    1. Re:Sweet by CptPicard · · Score: 5, Funny

      You must be new here, it should be obvious. Send the company a picture of goatse, and have your pattern...

      --
      I want to play Free Market with a drowning Libertarian.
    2. Re:Sweet by fru1tcake · · Score: 2, Funny

      Better still, send them a link that points to goatse, but then redirects to a Youtube clip of Cthulhu singing Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". That'll show em!

      --
      It's not a bug, it's a lepidopter!
  4. Well... not infinite. by pwnies · · Score: 4, Funny

    And 300 pixels are worth 3.060575122 * 10^614 pictures

    Fixed that for you.

  5. Re:infinite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Erm, with 300 pieces there are definitely more than 300 combinations of pieces. Considering you can put it into any shape. That's like saying you're 1024 pixel monitor can only show 1024 different pictures.

  6. a few pictures are worth a million words by Bourdain · · Score: 5, Funny

    a few pictures are worth a million words

    Especially when the accompanying text is in Japanese and I can't read it

    1. Re:a few pictures are worth a million words by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Moreover, not only their faces can also face other people. Even great men in history, even heterosexual love, even in the face of the pet ... "If life on Earth, even in the face any" I would make! What kind of mechanism and say something, but ... Well anyway, let's say that you actually try.

      I happen to read Japanese fluently, but this was worth it.

  7. Wow by esocid · · Score: 4, Funny

    You can even make a 404 error out of it!

    --
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
  8. do not taunt happy fun puzzle by SuperBanana · · Score: 5, Funny

    It essentially has a fixed histogram. I wonder what you'd get back from them if you sent them an image specifically designed to be hard to fit into that histogram...

    A squad comprised of a Ninja, a gradeschool girl with magical superpowers, a vampire, and a giant robot. On your doorstep. With a note that politely says, "Do not taunt happy fun puzzle."

  9. Re:infinite? by jameskojiro · · Score: 3, Funny

    But 41,000,000,000 is the largest number in Maths.

    Some have speculated there may be a larger number: 41,000,000,001?

    --
    Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
  10. Re:infinite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Depending on your view on the infinitude and quantization of the universe...

  11. Re:infinite? by rockNme2349 · · Score: 2, Funny

    if you allow arbitrary separation then the number of combinations is infinite.

    +3 Interesting? Really?

    It could only have been worse if it was Informative.

    --
    Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
  12. Re:infinite? by ChrisCampbell47 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The result, according to Python, works out to around 1.143*10^796, which is large, but not infinite.

    37 minutes.

    As I read "infinite" in the summary, I thought "OK, let's see how long it takes for one of these yahoos to calculate how many combinations there really are", since it is of course not infinite. The post went up at 6:02pm, and the parent of this post went up at 6:39pm. Congratulations :)

  13. Re:infinite? by derGoldstein · · Score: 4, Funny

    You people and your "math speak"... Maybe he was just excited to type the number 300? Did you ever consider that? Huh?

    Also, he could have meant the bitwise operation. Which means it could have been interpreted as "300... NOT!".
    Broaden your horizon, dude.

    --
    Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  14. Re:infinite? by derGoldstein · · Score: 4, Funny

    Higher precision, please.

    --
    Entomologically speaking, the spider is not a bug, it's a feature.
  15. Re:infinite? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    That is, of course, if he started the calculations right after the article was posted right? In any other case your calculations worth mmm lemme see...

    (37 minutes later)

    NOTHING!!!!

  16. Re:infinite? by ed314159 · · Score: 2, Funny

    They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. However, if we consider that a word is 16 bits and therefore has 2^(16) possible states, 1.143*10^796=2^(16*w) => w = 71.8 Apparently, a picture is worth less than a hundred words. Who knew?

  17. Re:300!? by MtlDty · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, this is Sparta