Gear

Metallica pinball

Master of Bumpers: Metallica declares …And Pinball for All

Say what you will about Metallica’s propensity to put its name on things, but this actually looks pretty awesome.

The band has teamed up with Stern, a leading manufacturer of pinball machines, for a Metallica-themed cabinet. Featuring 12 different songs, including “One,” “Master of Puppets,” “Creeping Death,” “Battery,” “Enter Sandman,” and “Fade to Black,” the machine will come in three different editions: Pro, Premium, and Limited Edition. Some of the features? An electric chair with a “shaking, writhing ‘Sparkey’ figurine,” two different ball-eating snakes, and a ball-smashing hammer. It sounds appropriately metal.

Check out another image and a teaser below. More info and how to order one here.

The Mantis “Walking Machine” heralds our insectoid-robot overlords

If you’re anything like us, you’ve been wondering when you’d have a jetpack, a personal robot servant, and meals in pill form since you were a kid. These were all things we were sure would have happened by now (Back to the Future: Part II, you have two years), but they don’t appear to be coming anytime soon, unless you count Roombas (which you shouldn’t).

FlashCharger

Out of juice? USB FlashCharger is a gadget-head travel essential

Smart phones consume a lot of power. So do tablets. It gets worse if you use even a few apps. And, in reality, it’s not always feasible to find an outlet when you get the warning that your gadget is about to die.

Because of this, coming across something like the FlashCharger is serendipitous. Charge up the battery at home, drop it in your bag along with a USB cord, and use it when you’re in a tight spot, electricity-wise. It’s not as versatile or powerful as something like the Goal Zero Yeti, requiring wall charging between uses, but for everyday emergency use, it’s not a bad choice — particularly when you can pick it at for a deeply discounted price ($14 instead of $60) for a limited time.

Espresso Veloce

Caffeine on 12 cylinders

In today’s world of everyone brewing their own coffee, have you had trouble finding an espresso machine that looks appropriately bad-ass sitting on your counter? Do you have copious amounts of money and not enough things to spend it on? Do you love Top Gear and enjoy super-cars and gadget porn? If you answered yes to all of that, meet your new espresso machine.

Chthonic's Rhythm Crusher

Got rhythm? Taiwanese thrashers Chthonic challenge fans with mobile game

Taiwanese extreme-metal band Chthonic’s latest album is in the bag, and while it’s being mixed in Sweden, the band is taking care of other business — notably, promoting its recent mobile game, Rhythm Crusher. It’s similar to other play-along games on the market, but it features Chthonic’s brutality and metal background art. And the band is promoting it in a unique, take-it-to-the-streets fashion.

Reimagining the synthesizer: Meet the Seaboard

The first instrument from UK music-tech company ROLI, the Seaboard is a reinvention of the keyboard with an organic way of controlling volume, pitch, intensity, and timbre. With soft, flexible keys, it’s designed to apply the control of an acoustic instrument to world of the electronic, while offering different sounds depending on where each is played. Plus the whole thing looks like it was designed by a less twisted HR Giger.

The Seaboard is due in a limited, handmade run of 88 this April.