Gearfuse

News agencies from around the world are reporting that Google’s ultra-popular Gmail service has been down since this morning. You can still send and receive mail using a third-party program, like Mail.app or Outlook, but apparently, for most international users, the web service isn’t working. I tried logging on at 9:30am here in New York and had no problems. But it seems that the major outages have occurred in the UK and Australia mostly.

Keep updated with Google’s official Gmail blog and support team. We’ll see how Google handles this fiasco. Maybe some extra storage for free?

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Here’s an idea that really benefits you as a homeowner. A removable kitchen sink that can be taken outside and the water drained over your garden. Genius. And the nutrients the plants will get from food waste will benefit your crop for sure. The design comes from Hughie of Australia and believe it or not, it’s not a concept! You can net one of these bad boys for a measly $25 and it comes in an assortment of different colors. Tres chic!

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NEWS FLASH: CRUNCHGEAR BLOGGER NICHOLAS DELEON IS “SQUEAMISH WHEN IT COMES TO EXCESSIVE VIOLENCE.” THE REPORT COMES ON THE HEELS OF THE RELEASE OF SILENT HILL: HOMECOMING, A SURVIVAL HORROR VIDEO GAME. SAID VIOLENCE INCLUDES:

…the OFLC [the Australian ratings board] cited several high impact scenes in the game, mostly focusing on drilling into and severing body parts. One scene in particular that was highlighted as a problem involved Alex (the main character) having a drill forced into his right eye socket, which caused a lot of blood to spray out.

SAID GAME IS NOW BANNED IN AUSTRALIA. HIDE YOUR CHILDREN IN A BASEMENT AND PRAY. END TRANSMISSION.

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In a land down under, there were plenty of new creatures found.

The Earth is billions of years old and still it continues to impress and evolve. Scientists researching an Australian reef system have found hundreds of new creatures in the ocean. New corals were found in addition to unknown life-forms.

Among the creatures researchers found were about 130 soft corals — also known as octocorals, for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp — that have never been described in scientific literature, and scores of similarly undescribed crustaceans, including tiny shrimp-like animals with claws longer than their bodies.

The Australian researchers conducted three expeditions, one each in the waters off the Great Barrier Reef’s Lizard and Heron islands, and one in the Ningaloo Reef, on Australia’s northwest coast. Thousands of samples were collected during the three-week research trips, which took place between April and September.

Can’t wait to see what Disney comes up with in 15 years thanks to this discovery.

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Wipe your ass with hundreds? Fuck rare breeds of dogs in the Galapagos Islands? Are you married to Carla Bruni? Great. You’re going to love this new bottled water coming soon to your favorite luxury hotel. It’s called Tasmanian Rain and is made with 100-percent real marketing gimmick. Additionally, it also contains rainwater that has, and I quote, “never touched the ground.” Yes. This is some nasty ass rainwater from Tasmania, Australia. Fan-fucking-tastic. You can get some to wash down that foie gras you got at the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons. Better yet, power your calculator with it so you can waste money whilst counting it.

Oh and you can get it delivered to your home too. $60 for a case of 12 750 ml bottles and $75 for a case of 24 375 ml bottles. What has the world come to?

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Australia gets all the fun stuff. And by fun stuff, I mean creative-looking bus stops. This particular bus stop features an ad for the Treasury Casino and is made up of 7563 dice. That’s a lot of craps.

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For those not familiar with the term “salaryman,” it’s the Japanese term for male office workers who bend over backwards for their job and work overtime on a daily basis. After this, they crawl their way home on all fours, bickering about how much they hate their own lives. Artist Momoyo Torimitsu, in an effort to address the issue of recent economic crashes in various countries, has created a crawling robot resembling a salaryman.

The video shoes the robot crawling through Sydney, Australia in an effortless attempt to bite ankles. Torimitsu follows it, dressed as a nurse while maintaining its insides by way of an ass-panel opening. She says, “Crawling is the soldier’s motion in the battlefield. I would say this is the business soldier.” So, that’s why she follows it around dressed as a nurse. Now I get it, but it’s still awkward.

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Physicists at the University of Sydney in Australia have created an optical chip that has the potential make the internet up to 100 times faster. These “chalcogenide glass photonic chips” can operate at data rates of almost 640 GB/s, meaning they’ll allow users to transmit the equivalent of seventeen whole DVD’s each second. Wow. Imagine what the bootleggers will be able to do with the new crystal chips.

Chalcogenide glass photonic chips are cheap to produce since they can be made from plain glass crystals. The chips increase internet speed by preventing networks from being bogged down by old fashioned electronic components when transmitting information at the speed of light. Scientists say this technology could be commercially available in as early as five years. Get ready for blazing fast downloads and supercomputers that will blow your mind.

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Here’s some shots of the beautiful Limes Hotel that just opened in Brisbane, Australia. It was designed by Alexander Lotersztain and is absolutely stunning. Blows away any building I have seen in New York. After the jump, more pictures.

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Crikey! Seems Australia is experiencing a massive overload in terms of personal gadgets and the sort. According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, as of June 30th, 2007 about 21.26 million cellphones were in operation. A respectable number, but surely not enough to dwarf an entire population, right?

Nadda. As of September 30th, 2007, Australia’s population as a whole was 21.1 million. At this rate, every Kangaroo is poised to have an iPhone in its pouch by 2013. Addiction to technology at its finest? You betcha.

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