LONDON, England – The people behind the 1980s phenomenon the Rubik's Cube have a new brain teaser in the pipeline.

Called the Rubik's 360, it's due to hit the shops later this year.

The original, fiendish plastic puzzle was launched on an unsuspecting public just in time for Christmas 1980.

Professor Erno Rubik, an architect and university lecturer in what was then communist Hungary had spent six years struggling to get his prototype – originally designed as a teaching aid for his students – into commercial production.

Once he did the Rubik's Cube quickly became the fastest selling toy of all time.

While sales inevitably declined over time, the Cube has enjoyed a renaissance in popularity of late, with sales of 15 million units achieved worldwide last year.

Whether his new puzzle will be as huge as its predecessor only time will tell, but according to Professor Rubik, the 360 takes the puzzle concept into another dimension. Literally.

As with the Cube gameplay is easy to grasp, but not so easy to execute. It's also not very easy to describe, but as I'm game for anything I'll give it a go...

The Rubik's 360 is 10 centimeters or so in diameter and consists of a transparent plastic sphere housing two additional transparent spheres, both independently suspended on a rotating axis, with six colored balls at its centre.

Er, are you still with me?

The object of the puzzle is to steer the colored balls through holes in the spheres and into their respective colored 'home slot' domes on the outside.

Sounds easy, right?

Wrong. Along the way you have to contend with some tricky problems thrown up by the force that keeps us all from flying off into space.

Just when you've got a ball where you want it, gravity kicks in and whips it away to the other side of the sphere. It's infuriating and great fun.

I was given one to play with at Hamleys toy store in London. After an hour or so of flipping, spinning and teeth gnashing I'd got no further than one or two colored balls locked in the wrong home slots and had to go lie in a darkened room to calm down.

I'm willing to bet that not long after its official launch there'll be eight-year-olds all over the world who'll be able to solve the 360 in under a minute.

And that thought is more annoying to this 40-something reporter than the puzzle itself!

Watch my report on Rubik's new toy.