Japan's Yu Nakajima won the Rubik's Cube World Championships overnight in Budapest, the birthplace of the cult puzzle. Nakajima averaged 12.46 seconds in arranging the six different colours of the six-sided classic 3x3 cube, which has nine panels on each side to arrange.

It's a toy that most kids have played with at one time or another, but the findings of Northeastern University Computer Science professor Gene Cooperman and graduate student Dan Kunkle are not child's play. The two have proven that 26 moves suffice to solve any configuration of a Rubik's cube - a new record. Historically the best that had been proved was 27 moves