Gizmodo: puzzle

Skip Today's Paper and Solve This Building's Crossword Puzzle Instead

Rosa Golijan — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 22:00:00 EDT

Does anyone know what the vandalism laws in Lviv, Ukraine are? Because I doubt that those "Oh, I always do these in pen, doesn't everyone?" sort of crossword pros would be able to resist this one.

Fortunately for those of us who can never get all the blanks filled in, the answers to this 100 foot puzzle appear at night thanks to some fluorescent paint. That's a neat feature and all, but where are the clues?

[English Russia]

Transformer Shelf Hides Your Stuff, Fauns In Its Puzzling Pockets

Kit Eaton — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:20:05 EST

This is not, quite, a Japanese puzzle box: But it is a transforming storage unit that has so many sliding, slotting, complex inner drawers, pockets and shelves that it comes close to being a puzzle. Designed by Martin Sammer, Transformer Shelf is just a solid shelving unit when "closed," but sliding it open reveals its labyrinthine innards, intended so that you can configure it however you want, and jamming lots of storage options into one unit. Somewhere in there there's an entrance to Narnia...I just know it. [Martinsaemmer via Tuvie]

Science Team Make Gut Bacteria Do Math: Living Computers On Way?

Kit Eaton — Wed, 21 May 2008 06:30:00 EDT

It may not be quite as sophisticated or cerebral as Starfleet's bio-neural computing gel packs, but scientists have made a start towards this sort of tech by making bacteria solve a math problem. The team from Davidson College and Missouri Western State University added genes to the harmless Escherichia coli, normally found wiggling its way 'round your gut. The result was a bacterial computer able to solve the classic mathematical puzzle called the Burnt Pancake Problem... kind of fitting for a gut bacterium, no?

The puzzle, in the way of these things, sounds deceptively simple: sort a stack of different-sized, one-burnt side pancakes so the largest is on the bottom and all unburnt sides are upwards in the fewest number of flips. The science team replicated the problem with DNA fragments as the pancakes, with genes spliced in from a different bacterium to act as the flipping mechanism. By adding yet one more gene, they made their little bacteria brain resistant to antibiotic when it got to the right answer, effectively stopping the "program" from running.

The team notes that the technique, when expanded into much more sophisticated bacterial systems, has enormous potential power as a massively-parallel processor, and billions of the computing cells take up very little space. Sounds like Starfleets living computers may one day be possible... though the idea of creating a pile of goo that can think and is antibiotic-resistant sounds like the stuff of more than one science-fiction nightmare, doesn't it? [Telegraph]

New Puzzle Alarm Clock Tests Your Early AM IQ

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 09:30:00 EDT

At the moment you wake up, how smart are you? If you're like me, your answer is "not very." Which is why I hate some jerk for teasing me with this IQ-test alarm clock. We've seen puzzle alarm clocks before, but none that try your cognitive skills in this manner when all you wanted to do was sleep in for another two hours. Then again, how smart can you possibly be if you take the time to insert yellow triangle, red star and green hexagon in their proper niches instead of simply hurling the base across the room until it goes "crack"? [Urban Trend] Thanks Gina!

Lite-on USB Puzzle Concept Keeps Kids From Sticking Fingers into Sockets

Jason Chen — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:00:38 EDT

Lite-on's concept for a USB puzzle game involves e-paper, puzzle pieces and software that feeds an image directly onto the puzzle board. Kids rearrange blocks in order to construct the puzzle (which is made out of the image you chose from your computer). However, it looks like the puzzle pieces themselves never actually change—just the images do. So all but the slowest of kids should be able to figure this out in no time. [Everything USB]

Puzzle Alarm Clock Presents Mild Challenge, Wakes You Up

Charlie White — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 12:44:55 EST

If you ve snoozed through one-too-many alarms and then way overslept, Bim Bam Banana s Puzzle Alarm Clock will give you a quick intelligence test that is bound to wake you up before it will stop its incessant honking. As soon as you can assemble the four puzzle pieces that are popped up into the air at your predesignated time, the thing will finally shut up. That should be just enough commotion to assure that you won't go drifting back into la-la land. You ll pay $52 for that privilege.

Product page [Bim Bam Banana, via popgadget]