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LG's new ThinQ recipe service sources ingredients from Amazon and Walmart
As usual, LG has unveiled its latest smart appliances for CES 2022, but this time they come with an unusual twist: a recipe service.
Sony's FlavorGraph uses AI to predict which ingredients will pair together
AI has gone into games and self-driving with mixed success, but now it's trying its hand at cooking.
BBC decides it won’t shut down its popular recipe site after all
Back in the spring of 2016, the BBC announced it would be axing various periphery websites and apps in an effort to save £15 million in upkeep costs. One of the items on the chopping block was recipe site BBC Food, the news of which sparked a public backlash and petition to save it, reminiscent of the campaign that kept Radio 6 Music on air the previous decade. In reaction to this, the BBC was quick to clarify the catalogue of over 11,000 recipes would remain accessible through the Good Food site, the online complement to the print magazine of the same name, run by commercial arm BBC Worldwide. Whether the recipes would be easily searchable and filterable by ingredient, chef and programme, as well as what was to happen to other handy features like video tutorials, was unclear. But these questions no longer need answering, as the broadcaster has now confirmed BBC Food is going nowhere, and will remain online and updated just as you've always known it.
Google adds a dash of Pinterest with recipes and shopping
Google Image Search hasn't really been well-suited to competing with Pinterest. You could save images for later viewing or visit the source page, but you couldn't always tell what you would get when you would click through. That's changing today. Google has updated Image Search to not only identify when an image points to a special content, but to display some of that content with a single glance. If you look for food, for instance, you may see "recipe" badges and even the recipe itself once you tap the picture. It'll also highlight purchasable products, animated GIFs and videos.
IFTTT's free 'maker' tier lets anyone create and share applets
We thought the combined might of Domino's Pizza and IFTTT shortcuts was as good as it might get, but that may just be the start. IFTTT is opening up its recipe/ applet creating platform to everyone, with a free 'maker' tier that offers deeper (read: harder) programming options beyond the simple "if this then that" UI most IFTTT aficionados use. You could already do this, making private applets for your own use, but this announcement means part-time developers can share any awesome applets with the greater IFTTT community, including lazy ingrates like myself.
Pinterest Lens finds recipes based on your weekend brunch pics
Pinterest announced its image recognition tool back in February, but the company has already added a number of improvements since then. Today, the company is revealing the latest addition to Lens: full dish recognition. This means that when you snap a pic of your plate with the Pinterest app, the software will find full recipes for complete dishes rather than just options based on single ingredients. This update to Lens isn't all the company is doing for aspiring cooks though.
Google Home has 5 million recipe options for your next night in
Google has been rapidly adding new features to its Home connected speaker recently, and the latest will be handy for chefs. Google Home can now read out recipes step-by-step -- but it sounds like you'll need to kick off the process using your smartphone. According to a blog post that went up today, Home will be able to read back more than 5 million recipes from sites like All Recipes, Food Network, Bon Appetit, the New York Times and more. First, though, you'll need to find the recipe you want on your phone using either the Google Assistant on Android or Google search on your iPhone.
IFTTT's recipe-based automation is coming to other apps
IFTTT's recipes are great for getting apps and devices that you use on the regular to interact with each other without being prompted to do so. Before now, you had to download the IFTTT app or visit its website to get everything setup, input your account details and more. That's about to change. Over the course of the last year, the company has been working with other companies to integrate those formulas inside their own apps rather than relying on IFTTT to handle the coordination elsewhere. The result is easy access to expanded features for companies beyond the standard tools their services provide.
Whirlpool is putting Innit's smart recipes on its WiFi ovens (updated)
Getting recipes and other cooking tips directly on a connected appliance is increasingly becoming the norm, and Whirlpool is one of the next in line. The company announced that it's Jenn-Air line of WiFi-equipped ovens will soon feature Innit recipes. While Innit aims to tackle the entire kitchen, including food storage and more, personalized recipes work with the connected oven and your tablet or phone. The appliance adjusts cooking to the weight and type of food to help ensure the results are what they should be.
BBC cuts Food and Newsbeat sites to save £15 million
The BBC has announced plans to close a string of sites and services including BBC Food, which hosts more than 11,000 recipes. The decision, which has triggered a large public outcry, is part of the broadcaster's pledge to make its programming, apps and news coverage more "distinctive." It follows criticism from the UK government that the BBC is trying to do too much with the licence fee, replicating and potentially suffocating services provided by other companies. Shuttering the sites will also save the BBC £15 million (roughly $21.7 million) in running costs.
Google's OnHub router uses IFTTT to automate your life
Google's $200 OnHub router arrived last year, delivering fast WiFi in a device that touted an easy setup and automatic security updates. In the months following its arrival, the company has also added features like guest mode and band steering. Today, OnHub became even more useful as Google announced that the device now supports automated recipes from IFTTT. For the uninitiated, IFTTT uses formulas called recipes to automate certain behaviors based on things like a device's location, time of day or some activity.
Tesco now lets you automate your shopping with IFTTT
Now we're at the point where shopping for groceries no longer requires you to trudge down to the local supermarket, retailers are constantly working on new ways to make filling our baskets a little bit easier. For its latest trial, Tesco -- still the UK's largest supermarket despite mega financial setbacks -- has launched a new platform that lets you automate some of your shopping. It's teamed up with task-managing service IFTTT to roll out a bunch of new "recipes" that can automatically add items to your basket when prices drop or even when the weather is unexpectedly favourable.
Turn Instagram food posts into meals with recipe app Handpick
Handpick, a recipe app that helps users craft meals using ingredients they have on-hand, now scours the filtered seas of Instagram for delicious-looking dishes and their accompanying recipes. This means the next time you're searching (or drooling) through "#food" on Instagram, you might be able to actually whip up whatever catches your eye. Handpick uses a mix of algorithm and human curation to find matching food posts and recipes, CEO Payman Nejati says (via TheNextWeb): "Instagram is effectively a database of over 1 billion food posts. We started analyzing that data through the public API and using computer vision, we know whether a post is about food. We then look at the caption and use that information to match recipes to social media posts."
I trusted my gut to IBM's Watson and it gave me a fowl old-fashioned
Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson is a collaboration between IBM and the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City. Once a week, as part of an ongoing series, we'll be preparing one recipe from the book until we've made all of them. Wish us luck. Before taking the helm at Vogue, where she laid the groundwork for the Devil to wear Prada, Diana Vreeland wrote a series of columns for Harper's Bazaar called "Why Don't You?" In a sort of goop for the 20th century, she would goad the super rich into ridiculous feats of capitalism. "Why don't you rinse your blond child's hair in dead champagne to keep it gold, as they do in France?" she'd ask. Or, "Have your bed made in China -- the most beautiful bed imaginable, the head board and spread of yellow satin embroidered in butterflies, alighting and flying, in every size and in exquisite colors?" Watson seemed to be channeling Ms. Vreeland in Cognitive Cooking, a collaboration between IBM's supercomputer and a group of humans at the Institute of Culinary Education (ICE). "Why don't you make an old-fashioned with a splash of chicken broth and a slice of grilled chicken for garnish?" it inquired. And in the spirit of excess we did just that.
IBM's Watson cognitive computer has whipped up a cookbook
IBM's Watson learning computer system isn't just content with making the occasional meal -- it has a whole slew of recipes lined up. The tech company is launching Cognitive Cooking with Chef Watson, a cookbook based on Watson's knack for combining food in a way that produces unique (and typically tasty) flavors. There's only about 65 foodstuffs in the mix, but they're considered "greatest hits" that should work well in real life. Just be prepared to do more grocery shopping than usual when the book arrives on April 14th, since IBM's machine tends to choose ingredients that you probably don't have in the pantry.
IFTTT's new tools tackle tasks with a single tap
IFTTT comes in handy for automating everyday tasks like setting the temperature on a Nest thermostat at bedtime or tweeting your Instagram snaps as native Twitter images. The software aims to lend even more of a helping hand, though, and its new trio of Do tools will, well... do just that. All three skip the actions that the usual recipe-based activities require, assigning the final result to a single tap. First, Do Button takes things like the aforementioned temperature adjustment, but instead of waiting for you to silence your phone or a certain time, it sets that Nest with one press of a button. Android users can load up to three tasks on the Do Button widget as well, offering quick access to the new control.
Popcart turns your online recipes into deliverable groceries
It's safe to say food is one of the greatest things life has to offer. However, sometimes not everyone has the right ingredients on hand to prepare every dish of interest, particularly those that, for whatever reason (read: they looked good), randomly stood out while surfing the web. Here's where Popcart hopes to come in. The newly developed tool, which is the result of a partnership between online grocer FreshDirect and recipe-indexing site Foodily, can pretty much transform any recipe on the internet into goods that can be delivered right to your door. It's simple really -- all you have to do is install the service's bookmarklet on your desktop browser and the rest is a piece of cake (not literally). Once you've done this, just highlight the ingredients from your recipe of choice, then click "Popcart it" on the bookmarks bar and, voilà, everything gets added to your FreshDirect cart. The only minor letdown is that Popcart's only available in places where FreshDirect operates, which includes areas around New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia, to mention a few. [Image credit: Shutterstock/Elena Shashkina]
Flavourit for iPhone is a good-looking, digital recipe book
Flavourrit is a new recipe management app for iPhone that lets you quickly and easily create and store recipes as attractive, interactive cards that are searchable by title, ingredients and up to 46 subcategories. The beautiful app makes it easy to see exactly which ingredients are needed and when. Well-designed, assignable icons illustrate the various cooking methods, so there's less text to get lost in. From a glance you can see what action needs to take place next. For example, a knife indicates chopping, while a mixer means all ingredients are to be mixed together. Of course, if you do need to add / see additional text, tap a button and the text appears next to the ingredients as per the stage you're at in the recipe. Once the necessary ingredients and methods have been collected, the app encourages you to take a photo of the completed dish, making it easy to find later. Adding recipes to Flavourit can feel a little cumbersome, but taking the time to do so accurately -- as well as a bit of time getting used to how the app works -- produces elegant, straight-forward recipes that can be shared via Facebook or as digital photos via email, text or printing. Flavourit has an in-app purchase that adds a shopping list feature and eliminates pop-up ads. Finally, as a version 1.0 app, Flavourit isn't as buttery-smooth as it could be. At times, I found myself having to repeatedly tap and swipe at things to get the desired result. Hopefully, updates will produce a more reliable experience. Despite these niggles, Flavourit is a great place to start. Have a look at Flavourit in action in the video below.
IBM's Watson supercomputer will help you cook in this new recipe app
Conventional recipe apps are all well and good if you're not sure what to eat in the first place, but what if you're looking to experiment? IBM thinks its Watson supercomputer can offer some advice, so it's teaming up with the editors at Bon Appétit to test Chef Watson, an app that leans on the cognitive machine's food-making skills to spice things up. Rather than make you choose from a small, predefined set of recipes, you set some criteria and let Watson do most of the hard work; it produces 100 meal suggestions based on both the ingredients you've allowed and the cooking styles you'd prefer.
Well Fed Buff: Love is in the Air Heart Candy
That bell-like sound? That sweet scent wafting through the air? Ah, that's love. Love is in the Air means it's time to slip that special someone a strategic Heart Candy. It's the thought the counts; nobody can deny that Heart Candies are probably not the tastiest treats in Azeroth. Good thing nobody actually eats them! (You don't, do you?!) You can pop as many as you like in real life if you whip up a batch here on Earth instead of in Azeroth. Like love itself, the recipe for Love is in the Air Heart Candy is simple yet demanding; you'll knead your heart out for this one. We've also got two tastier and quite romantic treats to share with you today: the delectable Dark Desire and those irresistible Tauren Toenails. Mmmm, chocolate!
