Hasta La Gadget!

After many, many years of Metallica appearing on the opposite side of the music industry from the music pirates that exist across the earth, they’ve joined Spotify for music streaming their entire catalog. It’s time for every single Metallica album from Kill ‘Em All to Master of Puppets to be up and ready to listen to on Spotify for the whole world – even the pirates – to listen to. This was all announced this week at the Spotify conference that also saw a larger launch of the web broswer based Spotify environment.

This week Metallica’s own Lars Ulrich stepped on stage with no less than former Napster head Sean Parker, former enemies in both the public and in the courtroom. The big announcement this week was that not only was the former Napster head fully aboard with the Spotify universe, but that Metallica was aboard as well – and that they were no longer at war, as it were.

Speaking about the Napster situation back in 2000, Lars made it clear: “it was never about money, it was about control… you have to control all those elements around you in your bubble… and the control option was taken away.” Meanwhile Napster’s Sean Parker let it be known that they never wanted the situation to be about giving away music, but “free as in freedom, not free as in theft.”

In other words, the two heads here did indeed need the moderator that sat on stage with them at the Spotify press conference. That said, Metallica is indeed on Spotify now.

“Metallica has always tried to be in control of the way we present our music to our fans, which is why we’ve waited to see the way these online retailers and streaming services operate and gauge the overall fan experience before deciding to include our music. We now feel that Spotify not only has a proven track record, but is by far the best music streaming service. We are beyond psyched to unleash our music through their platform.” – Lars Ulrich

Have a peek at the timeline below to get more information on Spotify and the rest of the updates that are coming down today.

Metallica hits Spotify, Lars Ulrich speaks is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Have you ever been into a bar where the bartender is part customer server, part entertainment? You certainly remember the locations with behind-the-bar antics. Usually it involves bottles and colorful drinks, flips and turns. But what about us beer and ale drinkers in the world? How do we get entertainment? Popping a top sure seems mellow in comparison to flipping bottles.

BBbarfly, devised by a former bartender and an engineer, adds a little pizzazz to the art of serving and drinking beer.  As any bartender or ‘beertender’ will attest the sheer volume of beers opened require a reliable tool. And you need a tool the professionals count on. Sure it is a bottle opener. But open it up and take a look. The high quality stainless steel means you can open hoards of bottles. Comfortably too as the cover becomes a sturdy handle. BBbarfly is designed for optimum weight distribution during the opening process. Patterned after a butterfly knife the BBbarfly folds down to less than 5.5” – perfect for a pocket or drawer. Units start at just $25 on BBbarfly website.  You can select from 10 colors and over 150 designs. Or mix and match. Or make your own! Contact BBbarfly and they can look into customizing a unit or units for you. What a great way to keep your company’s name out there.

The specs are just half the fun of BBbarfly though. What you do with the unit makes it all worth it. BBbarfly creates Trick Tutorials for your device – new entertaining moves to open, close, flip, spin and amuse  Hop on their website to learn tricks like the John Wayne or the Kickback or my personal favorite, the Transformer. You finally have a chance to perfect those butterfly knife tricks – without the blade! Tricks continue to multiply as BBbarfly users submit content to the Flair Beertending section of the site too. And if that is not enough, add some style with a belt holster for $15.

So for a fun approach to opening bottles check out BBbarfly for you or the beer drinker on your list. These bottle gadgets prove to make the task of de-capping a beer bottle easy, fun and entertaining.
[ A Friend for Any Beer Fan copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Well, it seems that the LG E940 has just leaked, where this is a high end smartphone that will, in all probability be the next member of the Optimus team, picking itself up where the Optimus G left off. There is a very high chance that the LG E940 will come with a 1080p display right out of the box in order to take on the likes of the HTC Droid DNA, and the rumor points toward a spring release. Not only that, apparently the carrier of choice has already been decided – which would be AT&T, at least this is what some of the strings within the results point to.

The processor could very well be a Snapdragon S4 Pro or a variant of it, if one were to make the most out of the “Qualcomm” string and Adreno 320 GPU. Assuming that this is the US-bound version of the F240 that was destined for South Korea, then folks who are headed toward CES should be able to spot the LG E940 in Las Vegas next month. Hmmm, don’t you think it to be rather strange that Samsung, a major player, has not yet jumped aboard the Full HD smartphone display bandwagon?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Windows Phone 8 Portico OS Update, Galaxy S3 Premium Suite Features Fleshed Out,

Spotify is currently giving a press event right now and they’re showing off some cool new features in the Spotify web app, which is currently in beta. They’ve already announced that they currently have 1 million US paid subscribers in the US, with 5 million worldwide, as well as 20 million total active users. Now, they’ve shown off the beta web app to all, and demoed some of the cool new discovery features.

Spotify says that with these new discovery features, they’re “bringing the most relevant content to users in the most helpful way.” They revealed their upcoming web app, which is currently and beta, and showed off some of the discovery features that all users will soon have access to, including the ability to follow friends and artists.

Spotify wants to bring artists and their fans closer together. This means that when you follow an artist, you can get notifications when your favorite artists features specific songs on their own account. It’s a great way to keep up with what your favorite artists are listening to and what they like.

Integration with Songkick and Pitchfork is also coming, which means that you learn more about a song, including ratings, reviews, and bio information. Songkick integration includes tour dates for concerts, as well as an easy way to buy tickets for an upcoming concert in your area.

Spotify web app revealed for all users is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It’s time to join the Spotify music discovery revolution for their software experience with your own Collection – their own suggestions, your own content. This update has the Spotify user experience expanded not just in the amount of music that’s on the web for you to see easily, but creates a unique experience for you, the music user. The first place this all takes place in your Spotify “Collections”, made on-the-go by Spotify for you.

Based on your interests you’ll be finding a set of squares (as you see above and below) that show information about the music you’re about to discover as well as brief previews of the tunes. With the buttons here in the Web App (also new today) you’ll be able to press down to listen, this interrupting the music you’ve been listening to up until this point. After you let go, your track continues.

“Spotify is great when you know what music you want to listen to, but not so great when you don’t … We’re adding tens of thousands of new songs every single day, a new artists is competing not only with new songs, but the entire history of music.” – Daniel Ek

This Collections (not all that different from your own Collection) shows all the artists you follow, tracks they’ve got, and tracks that are related to them. This doesn’t just mean that if you’ve got a collection full of Metal you’ll only get Metal music, but that you’ll get a selection of tracks that relate. If your best buddy from Slayer also likes Michael Jackson, you may very well be having a peek at that in your Collections.

Reviews from Pitchfork and information from other sites connected to Spotify are all integrated here in one way or another – this is just one of several giant moves Spotify has made this week in bringing their platform into the future. Have a peek at the timeline below for more information straight from the source!

Spotify Collections revolutionizes their music discovery platform is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.