Gearfuse

Print is seemingly on its death bed. The last rattling breath is barely escaping the industry’s lungs, yet the investors and the journalists continue to hold on for dear life, now only grasping with one slippery and weak finger.

But all of this doesn’t seem to phase Newpaper Man, designed by Mark Jenkins in what I imagine to be a last ditch effort at saving print media. If you want to spy the Newspaper Man yourself, you’ll need to grab an airplane ticket to South Korea.

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Is this proof that time travel, indeed, exists? I want to believe, baby! Please tell me Marty McFly would never lie to me!

By the way, I think my brain just imploded.

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Look, I love Apple as much as the next guy does, but this is ridiculous. The press and bloggers are becoming rabid paparazzi as they demand to know every detail about Steve Jobs’ life. I mean look as this shit on Techmeme. Is this seriously the biggest news out there? That a hospital tried to keep the identity of one of its patients off the radar but couldn’t? Jesus Christ. I understand there’s a correlation between full disclosure, stockholders and Apple but this is absurd. Get over it already and let the man live his life.

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For a small fee each month, you can get Netflix to not only send DVDs to your house, but you can also stream thousands of movies via its online movie service. The Xbox 360 currently supports this feature, which no doubt pisses off most Playstation 3 owners like myself. But now, there’s a glimmer of hope.

According to the Netflix job listings, there’s a position for “Engineering Leader – Gaming Platforms.” Yeah, I know. Take it with a grain of salt, but some websites believe that this is a sign that Netflix will bring streaming video to PS3 and the Wii. The PS3 already supports Flash, though. Has anyone tried Netflix’s movie service via the web browser on the PS3?

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The 1950s saw the birth of many things we still detest to this day, like beatniks and Communist Cuba. While this Mini Media Centre designed by British design student Thomas Thomassen looks like the tail light of a ‘57 Chevy. Except this thing was actually designed in 2006.

It reminds me of the Happy Days, when my buddy Fonz would water ski in tightie whities as he stunt jumped over sharks. Those were the days. The Happy Days.

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Get ready for some news that will blow your fucking mind. Ready? CD sales are down. I know! Down? How could this be? The execs at Atlantic Records feel the same way. Seems during Q4, Atlantic Records had 51% of all sales come from non-physical sources like iTunes sales and ringtones. The New York Times found it “shocking,” so what does this mean for us? It means more and more people are transitioning to iPods and MP3s over Walkman and CDs.

NBC Universal’s Jeff Zucker sums it up nicely, calling the transition “trading analog dollars for digital pennies.” Touche.

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Samsung is updating its portable media player with the successor to the Samsung YP-P2, the Samsung P3. The device will be formerly announced in January, joining the media player race alongside the iPod, Toshiba U103 and the non-existant MySpace PMP.

Subtle changes include its rectangular aluminum body and three inch 480 x 272 touchscreen. You can expect it to have Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, FM and many of the other typical photo, audio and video capabilities found in portable media players. Storage capacity will range from 4GB to 32GB with varying prices which will be announced at a later date. Expect this to hit store shelves in early 2009.

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Who does Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace.com, think he is? Michael Arrington of TechCrunch? Because he certainly doesn’t think he’s the CEO of MySpace. If he did, he wouldn’t have come up with the crazy notion that MySpace could compete in what is essentially Apple’s market of portable media players. Seriously, a MySpace-branded portable media player? Are you nuts?

According to Reuters, DeWolfe is only thinking about it. Let’s hope this idea remains a thought never to be realized, lest it joins the ranks of the Zune all the way at the bottom. If Microsoft can’t compete, what makes MySpace think it can? Clearly, it’s the Kool-Aid.

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The Mintpass Mintpad is a neat concept, had Nintendo not thought of its conception four years ago with the Nintendo DS. What seems like a glorified stand-alone version of the Nintendo DS’s Pictochat is also a portable media player, camera and web browser.

With this lil’ tablet, you can send full color notes to any other Mintpad users with its built-in WiFi capabilities. It packs 4GB of internal memory, which is a lot considering the IMOVIO iKIT only comes with 64MB and is $15 dollars more expensive. The letdown is that you can’t pull the screen off and stick Post-It notes all over your fridge, this thing is purely digital. I know, it’s a total bummer.

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Jean Shin is pretty cool. First, we saw her bizarre melted wave of vinyl records (we hope no Journey vinyl was used.) Now, we’re taking a look at Jean Shin’s TEXTile, an interactive sculpture that’s comprised of 22,528 recycled keyboard keys that are fashioned in a way to make it appear as a tapestry. At its base is a customized active keyboard which works with interactive software, so anything you type becomes part of the sculpture when it is displayed on the video projection.

If you just so happen to be in the Philadelphia area, check out the Permanent Collection of Fabric Workshop and Museum. TEXTile and some of Jean Shin’s other work can be found there. If you find that some of the keys on the TEXTile are a little sticky, stay away from them. These are recycled keys, after all.
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