snacks
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Meal replacement startup Huel brings its 200-calorie snack bars to the US
If you find yourself constantly without time to prepare food, there's a new "healthy" option when it comes to nutritional snacks. Huel, the British-equivalent of Soylent, is launching its snack bars in the US. Starting today, you can purchase the company's v3.1 snack bars through its website. They're available in two flavors, chocolate and salted caramel, with a single order of 30 bars priced at $62.22. You can also buy 30 bars for $56 if you sign up for Huel's subscription service. That works out to $2.07 and $1.87 per bar respectively.
Pepsi's loyalty program puts cash in your Venmo account
Do you wish soft drink makers would stop using point systems for reward programs and simply give you cold, hard cash? You're about to get your wish... in a manner of speaking. Pepsi is launching a PepCoin loyalty program that rewards you for buying both a single-serve beverage and a Frito-Lay snack by sending money to PayPal and Venmo accounts. If you scan enough codes on bottles and bags, you'll receive a little bit of cash. You'll have to earn $2 before it goes to your account, but this is real spending money -- you can use it to pay your share of last night's pizza.
Imgur's Snapchat-style GIF collections come to Android
Imgur's bid to bring Snapchat-like Stories to the GIF world is no longer confined to iOS. It's releasing an updated Android app that brings Snacks and the Feed to a wider array of devices. Snacks, as before, lives under the search tab and gives you a curated Story-style gallery of GIFs you can sit back and watch when you're looking to be entertained. The Feed, meanwhile, sits in your home section and lets you follow both Imgur users and tags to keep up with the latest GIF trends.
Imgur's Snacks is a Story-like collection of curated GIFs (updated)
Imgur began as a way for Redditors to share images quickly and easily, but has grown into a pretty robust site and accompanying mobile app. Last week, the company announced two new features that should help you find more time-wasting goodness: a tag-based content feed and a new Snacks feature, which echoes Snapchat (and Instagram, Facebook and YouTube) Stories.
Fruit scraps and algae: It's what's for dinner
Supercomputers are dreaming up crazy new ways to cook the food that we have today, but will we eat the same things in the future? For instance, when news of California's drought began to hit, people wondered if switching to a diet rich in insects would be the only way to survive. A variety of factors, most notably the face you pulled when someone suggests insects in place of a McCheeseburger, was why that idea crashed and burned. So what sort of food will we be eating in our resource constrained, population-heavy future, aside from, you know, people? Here's two companies exhibiting at Hello Tomorrow in Paris that have very different ideas on the snacks of 2020.
The Daily Grind: Do you eat while you play?
MMOs are time-consuming in a way that few other games are. The oldest games often asked people to sit and camp monsters for hours on end, the sort of thing that required a long vigil and continued attention. Those days are largely gone, but even in games supporting more bite-sized chunks of content, there's still a strong incentive for long leveling sessions and chain-running dungeons. Considering that you're likely in a game that's overflowing with food items, either from crafting or as background ambiance, it's understandable why you might want to get a bite to eat. And if you're just going to go back to playing after you're done eating, why wait? Sometimes you really can't eat at your desk (or wherever you play), and sometimes you don't want to. But as a rule, do you eat while you play your game of choice? Or do you step away from the game to have a snack? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Popinator voice-activated popcorn launcher: because greasy hands are just so 2011 (update: yep, may become a product)
Before you ask: it looks like the real deal. Popcorn, Indiana has decided that it's just too much trouble to reach into that bag or bowl and has devised the Popinator, quite possibly the world's only smart popcorn launcher. A binaural microphone array on the machine's front listens for a clear "pop" command -- say the magic word and the Popinator will aim one of its many corn projectiles at your mouth, no hands required. We're still working to glean all the details, such as whether or not the snack delivery vehicle will be a commercial project and how much money it would take to install one at home (and, we'll admit it, the Engadget offices). In the meantime, you can hop past the break to catch one of the most appetizing and laid-back promo videos you've likely ever seen. [Thanks, Peter] Update: Popcorn, Indiana has answered back and says the Popinator is currently an in-house project, but it may well become something you can buy if everything lines up. We'll let the full statement speak for itself: "All we have to say is: it is a work in progress right now. We certainly hope that one day it will become a commercial project, but as of now there is no shipping date and no price tag. It is purely a fun internal project we are toying with here at Popcorn Indiana. Based on the very positive responses we are getting online, we think this is well worth looking into as a commercial product."
Breakfast Topic: What do you nibble on at raid time?
This Breakfast Topic has been brought to you by Seed, the Aol guest writer program that brings your words to WoW Insider's pages. We've all been there, scrambling about 3 minutes before raid to buy or make our consumables before the raid leader goes into convulsions. But what of the real you? Personally, I have a whole separate collection of consumables sitting at my computer desk for the duration of every raid, with a particular preference for pizza bagels, if not the timeless classic Hot Pockets, as well as a tall cup of "raid coffee" with a delicious white chocolate caramel creamer (something my GM loves to give me grief about). Nothing gets a boss down faster than a well fed player, virtual or physical, I always say! What sort of real-life consumables do you gather before a raid? Do you prepare your very own feast, or do you run off to get fast food?
Six ways playing WoW can save you money
Summer's here, gas prices are up, and the economy is suffering both in-game and in real life. Ultimately, it's a "dogs and cats sleeping together" kind of situation for your cash flow. Jagoex over at Warlock Therapy has your wallet covered with "10 Ways Gamers Can Save Money." He's talking about all gamers, and has quite a lot to say for the console gamers, but his tips pretty much apply to everyone. Of course, there are a few things you can do specifically as a WoW player to save your bank account some stress over this bleeding hot summer.
DS Daily: NOM NOM NOM
If there's one activity we enjoy as much as playing DS, it's eating. Naturally then, combining the two results in the perfect lazy afternoon for us, but you have to be careful. As the DS involves rather a lot of touching, greasy foods such as pizza are automatically out, particularly as dirt and grime loves to accumulate on the edge of the touchscreen. This writer also prefers to avoid stuff that can drip easily -- as much as it saddens us, Coke and technology will never be BFF.With these ground rules in mind, I find there's nothing quite like Cool Ranch Doritos and Medium Salsa dip to complement a marathon DS session, while white seedless grapes provide a healthier, almost-as-good alternative. What's your perfect gaming snack?
