Forever fad: Rubik says his cube 'reminds us why we have hands'

Budapest: The naysayers said the maddening multicoloured cube that Erno Rubik invented 50 years ago would not survive the 1980s. Yet millennials an...

Budapest: The naysayers said the maddening multicoloured cube that Erno Rubik invented 50 years ago would not survive the 1980s.

Yet millennials and Generation Z are as nuts about Rubik's Cube as their parents were, much to the amusement of its 79-year-old creator, who talked to AFP in a rare interview.

In a digital world "we are slowly forgetting that we have hands", Rubik said.

But playing with the cube helps us tap back into something deeply primal about doing things with our hands, he said -- "our first tools", as he calls them.

"Speed cubing" and Rubik's Cube hacks are huge on social media, with youngsters regularly going viral while dancing, rapping and even playing the piano while solving the 3D puzzle.