"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."

Comments

Re:infinite?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

there was a exclamation mark. 300 factorial, 300 x 299 x 298 x 297x ... x 2 x 1.

Incidentally, if anyone wants to calculate that, you'll need to use a float, and probably a double-, or quadruple-precision (YMMV) one at that.

Oh Come ON!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on. I thought the people on this site were somewhat intelligent? Lets apply some slightly advanced algebra and come up with something better than " 300 pixels are worth an infinite number of pictures." The maximum number of ways you can arrange 300 things is 300!, or about 3.06 X 10^614. Granted a very large number, but definitely not infinite. Stop running dumbass shit like I'd expect to find on digg, and post things that actually make sense. We might not all be grammar geeks, but we are most likely math/science/computer geeks.

infinite?

[element-o.p.]

Just a minor quibble, but 300 pixels are not worth an infinite number of pictures. They are actually only worth 300! (or 306 057 512 216 440 636 035 370 461 297 268 629 388 588 804 173 576 999 416 776 741 259 476 533 176 716 867 465 515 291 422 477 573 349 939 147 888 701 726 368 864 263 907 759 003 154 226 842 927 906 974 559 841 225 476 930 271 954 604 008 012 215 776 252 176 854 255 965 356 903 506 788 725 264 321 896 264 299 365 204 576 448 830 388 909 753 943 489 625 436 053 225 980 776 521 270 822 437 639 449 120 128 678 675 368 305 712 293 681 943 649 956 460 498 166 450 227 716 500 185 176 546 469 340 112 226 034 729 724 066 333 258 583 506 870 150 169 794 168 850 353 752 137 554 910 289 126 407 157 154 830 282 284 937 952 636 580 145 235 233 156 936 482 233 436 799 254 594 095 276 820 608 062 232 812 387 383 880 817 049 600 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000) pictures.