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The best ice cream maker
By Marguerite Preston and Lesley Stockton This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and Engadget may earn affiliate commission. Read the full guide to ice cream makers. After researching for 95 hours, testing 16 machines, talking with pro ice cream makers and a food scientist, and churning gallons of the frozen stuff since 2014, we think the Whynter ICM-15LS is your best bet for making consistently great ice cream at home. It's not cheap, but because it's so easy to use and it essentially guarantees success, it would likely get a lot more play in your kitchen than cheaper, more finicky machines. The Whynter ICM-15LS not only made some of the smoothest ice cream in our testing but also ranked as the quietest-running maker we tried and the easiest to scoop from and clean. And since it's a self-refrigerating compressor machine, you won't have to deal with freezing an insert bowl or futzing with messy ice and salt. If the Whynter ICM-15LS sells out, or you just want more bells and whistles, the Breville Smart Scoop is a great alternative. Although it made slightly creamier ice cream than our top pick, the difference was so subtle that we don't think it's worth the extra $100 or more for most people. It has an auto function with 12 hardness settings and a keep-cool function so you can set your ice cream and walk away. And its brightly lit LCD screen and control panel with big buttons make it easy to use—even for kids. The Lello 4080 Musso Lussino is the crème de la crème of home ice cream makers. In our tests the large, sleek machine churned out smooth and creamy batches of ice cream in less than 30 minutes, the fastest of any model we tried. And our tasters unanimously voted its ice cream the smoothest and best-flavored. But its jaw-dropping price makes the Musso Lussino too expensive for casual dessert-making. If you plan on making more than a quart of ice cream a week, this might be the machine for you. If a $200 price tag on an ice cream maker sounds steep to you, consider the affordable Nostalgia ICMP400, which is just one step beyond old-fashioned hand-crank models. While it still requires you to add ice and salt to freeze the mixture, this machine is fitted with a motor to do all of the hard work for you. In our tests its ice cream was slightly icier than that from our main pick but still tasty. It makes up to 1 gallon at a time, and as long as you have enough ice and rock salt, you can turn ice cream all day. If you own a KitchenAid stand mixer, we really like the KitchenAid Ice Cream Maker KICA0WH attachment, as well. This is a bowl that requires prefreezing, which necessitates more planning ahead than our main pick. In our tests it made the absolute fluffiest ice cream of the machines we tried, since the lowest setting on the KitchenAid stand mixer is still faster than the speed at which ice cream makers spin. We didn't mind the texture at all; in fact, it was quite pleasant.
Cruel pranksters made NYC internet kiosks play ice cream truck tunes
New York City is in the midst of a heatwave, and some pranksters are taking advantage of technology to twist the knife a little more. LinkNYC has confirmed to Motherboard that someone is making its internet kiosks play ice cream truck music, taunting hapless New Yorkers looking for a cold treat on a hot day. It's incredibly cruel (or wonderfuly clever, if you're the mischievous sort), but there's no hacking involved. The perpetrators phone a kiosk, play the mouthwatering tunes from their phone, and switch to the kiosk's home screen to hide that there's a call in progress.
Baskin-Robbins and DoorDash will deliver ice cream to your stoop
If you're like me, once the mercury starts rising, your diet slowly becomes more and more ice-cream-and-popsicle based. But what if it's too hot and you don't want to drive or walk to the nearest ice cream parlor? That's where Baskin-Robbins comes in. The franchise claims it has devised a way to deliver its frozen confections, intact, to your door thanks to a partnership with DoorDash. Some 600 stores in 22 cities are making delicious deliveries. There is a catch: While you can surely order whatever you'd like, you'll have to supply your own whipped cream.
Protein prevents your ice cream from melting quickly
In the future, you might not have to rush to eat your ice cream cone on a hot summer's day. Scottish researchers have discovered a naturally occurring protein that binds the air, fat and water in ice cream, which slows melting. The move would prevent your dessert from becoming a puddle, and spare companies from deep freezing their treats for as long as they do today. You could see higher-quality ice cream, too -- the protein promises a smoother texture without as many ice crystals or saturated fats.
Physicist concocts ice cream that changes color when you lick it
What happens when a physicist decides to become a chef? If they're anything like Manuel Linares, then you can expect a fusion of food and science to come out of their kitchen. For instance, one of the Spaniard's masterpieces is an ice cream that changes colors when you lick it. He calls it the Xamaleón, a play on the Spanish word for chameleon, and it originally starts as a periwinkle blue frozen treat until it's spritzed with Linares' "love elixir," a super secret mixture he concocted himself. This mixture reacts to changes in temperature and saliva, causing the tutti-frutti-flavored ice cream to turn into purple, then into pink as you lick.
Chocolate? Pfft, MIT students are 3D printing with ice cream
Sorry, that's not a 3D-printed ice cream cone, Mr. President. Sure, those 3D printers that can output confectionery creations in sugar, chocolate and other edible substances are great, but a trio of MIT students have upped the awesome. Using a household Cuisinart ice cream maker and a Solidoodle printer, the crew hacked together a device that prints soft serve for an additive manufacturing course. The modified 3D printer is housed inside of a small freezer and a line of liquid nitrogen blasts the dairy dessert as it's placed, keeping the object solid during the 15-minute process. That time limit was imposed by group, so that when Dairy Queen and the like want to offer custom creations, the wait time won't seem like an eternity. For now though, there's a brief glimpse of the action after the break. [Photo credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images]
Uber Ice Cream returns July 19th, takes on-demand dessert worldwide (video)
Veteran Uber members will remember last year's Uber Ice Cream: for one day only, they could use the company's mobile app to hail an ice cream truck and beat the heat. The program is thankfully coming back on July 19th, and this time on a much larger scale. Customers in 18 US cities and 16 international cities can order group-sized batches of ice cream that should arrive within minutes; the most common US pricing offers five desserts for $25. You'll need to both sign up and download Uber's Android or iOS apps if you want to take part, but those small hassles could lead to some big relief from the summer swelter.
Ice Cream Sandwich takes a bite out of Gingerbread, represents 15.9 percent of Android devices
Two major updates later (three if you count the tablet-exclusive Honeycomb), and Gingerbread is finally starting to falter. According to Google's latest two week survey of devices accessing the Play store, Ice Cream Sandwich is on the rise, filling out 15.9-percent of the Android user base. That's a full five points ahead of Android 4.0's July score, and it's eating into the OS' other flavors: Gingerbread (Android 2.3) dropped by 3.4-percent, Froyo (Android 2.2) by 1.8 and Eclair (Android 2.1) by a meager half a percent. Google's latest confectionery update, Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), made an appearance as well, eking out a shy 0.8-percent of the market. Check out Google's collection of charts for yourself at the source link below or let us know where your devices falls in the comments.
Ice Cream Sandwich consumed by one in ten Android devices
The latest Dashboard numbers for Google's Android operating system have been released. The verdict? One in ten devices is leveraging Ice Cream Sandwich as their mobile OS of choice. The numbers, which are current as of July 2nd, put Gingerbread (Android 2.3) in first place with a 64-percent install base; followed by Froyo (Android 2.2) with 17.3-percent and ICS with 10.6-percent. Jelly Bean (Android 4.1), announced just last week at Google's IO Developer Conference, was not included in this instance of the report (as it is not officially available yet). Hit the source link to view all the stats, and feel free to let us know what Android codebase your handset is rocking via the comments.
ViewSonic adds ViewPad G70, E100 and P100 to its tablet collection
In addition to the ICS phone trio, ViewSonic's also just announced three new tablets ahead of the MWC party. Pictured on the left is the 7-inch "super light, super slim" ViewPad G70 -- to be sold alongside the E70 -- featuring Android Ice Cream Sandwich, 1GB RAM, 4GB storage, microSD expansion, a two-megapixel imager and a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera, along with various ports including mini HDMI, micro-USB and mini-USB. Oddly enough, ViewSonic hasn't confirmed the G70's processor specs, but we'll let you guys know when we do.Another ICS tablet in this lineup is the 9.7-inch ViewPad E100. While we're still waiting for its press shots, we're told that this slate packs a 1,024 x 768 IPS display, a 1GHz chip, and the usual selection of connectivity like HDMI, USB and microSD. All of this comes in a package weighing 620g and at 9.1mm thick.Last but not least, we have the Windows 7-powered ViewPad P100 pictured on the right, featuring a 10-inch 1,280 × 800 IPS display, a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom N2600 and a camera on both the front and the back. No deets on pricing and availability just yet, so stay tuned as we scan the MWC show floor next week.
ZTE to unleash eight new phones at MWC, hopes multi-core chipsets and LTE push them into third place
If the trio of slabs ZTE announced earlier this week weren't enough for you, sit tight, the outfit just announced it's bringing a total of eight new phones to Barcelona next week. The new handsets will reportedly flaunt multi-core processors, LTE radios and the latest versions of the Android and Windows Phone platforms. This announcement both echos and one-ups the recently announced Mimosa X, which gets its dual-core chops from an NVIDIA Tegra 2, but boasts only HSPA+, rather than the promised LTE. ZTE says it hopes the new devices will help it become one of the world's top three handset providers by the year 2015. Seem far off? Don't worry, at least the phones will be here by Monday. Read on for ZTE's official press statement.
ZTE Mimosa X official: ICS, Tegra 2, HSPA+ and 4.3-inch qHD display, arriving in Q2
And then there were three. Not 24 hours after announcing a pair of Android 4.0 handsets, ZTE is back with the Mimosa X, a 4.3-inch, HSPA+ device running Ice Cream Sandwich. Interestingly, this is the first time since NVIDIA acquired wireless chip maker Icera that we've seen a phone packing both Tegra 2 and an NVIDIA-made modem (in this case, the 21Mbps-capable Icera 450). In its press release, NVIDIA also goes so far as to say this is the first time "a premium mobile computing experience is coming to the mainstream smartphone market," as if Tegra 3 hadn't already pushed Tegra 2 down into mid-range territory. Anyhow, marketing spin aside, this is indeed a middle-of-the-road device, with a qHD (960 x 540) display, 5-megapixel camera and 4GB of internal storage. It also supports A2DP Bluetooth and DLNA, and makes room for dual mics and a gyroscope. No word yet on how much it'll cost or even what markets it'll hit, though we do know it will go on sale sometime in Q2. Until then, something tells us we might get our first look much sooner, sometime in Barcelona next week.
Live from Google I/O 2011's day 2 keynote!
No, you aren't losing your mind. You're really tuned in to the second Google keynote in as many days, and if we had to guess, we'd say Chrome and / or Chrome OS will take top billing. Things haven't started just yet, but your patience (or impatience) is greatly appreciated. Have a look below to see when things get going! 06:30AM - Hawaii 09:30AM - Pacific 10:30AM - Mountain 11:30AM - Central 12:30PM - Eastern 05:30PM - London 06:30PM - Paris 08:30PM - Moscow / Dubai 12:30AM - Perth (May 12th) 12:30AM - Shenzhen (May 12th) 01:30AM - Tokyo (May 12th) 02:30AM - Sydney (May 12th)
Google Ice Cream Sandwich coming in Q4 2011 to smartphones and tablets alike
"One OS that runs everywhere." There you have it, folks! Google intends to meld its Honeycomb tablet wares and Gingerbread smartphone software into one delicious Ice Cream Sandwich. Maybe that's why the "sandwich" bit is in the name, eh? Either way, it'll be a universal OS that runs on everything from teeny tiny Android phones to 10-inch tablets and will intelligently adapt to each form factor with things like a resizable status bar. Some other fancy new additions were demonstrated during Google's I/O 2011 keynote, including face-tracking and camera focus shifting based on voice recognition, but most of the salient details remain under lock and key for now. We'll be sure to dig around Mountain View campus fridges in search for more clues about the next major iteration of Android. %Gallery-123220%
Google details some of the Honeycomb features coming to Ice Cream: action bar, 'hologram' visual style
Google has already confirmed that its Honeycomb and Gingerbread iterations of Android would be combined in the next version of OS -- dubbed Ice Cream by all accounts -- and it's now also providing a few more details about what Honeycomb features will be carried over to smartphones. Speaking to Phone Scoop, Google Android Engineering Director Dave Burke said that the contextual "action bar" at the top of the screen on Honeycomb tablets will be used on phones as well, but that the system bar at the bottom of Honeycomb might not make the transition. You can apparently expect the so-called "hologram" visual style of Honeycomb to carry over though, along with the multitasking app switcher that provides a snapshot of each app running. That's about all the details there are at the moment, but you can be sure we'll be digging for more.
Next version of Android will combine Gingerbread and Honeycomb, arrive on a six-month cycle
Eric Schmidt didn't give a ton of details about the future of Android during his MWC 2011 keynote, but he did drop one interesting tidbit: the next version of Android will "start with an I, be named after a dessert" and combine Gingerbread for phones and Honeycomb for tablets into a cohesive whole. We'll just go out on a limb and say that he's talking about Ice Cream, and that we'll see that Fragments UI construct used to bridge the phone / tablet display size gap. Unfortunately, Eric didn't say anything about timing -- just that updates have been happening on a "six month cycle." Considering that Honeycomb has yet to officially launch on any devices, we'd say that's not so long to wait -- but of course we're also dying to know more as soon as possible. We'll let you know if we hear anything good.
Ben & Jerry's stores in Singapore giving away free iPhone cases
Popular ice cream chain Ben & Jerry's is giving away a set of pretty awesome iPhone cases -- but only in Singapore. Customers in that country will be able to trade in four carton tops to stores there and pick up one of 5,000 completely free iPhone covers. You can see what the covers look like above -- there are twelve shops involved in the promotion, and each one of those shops also has one limited edition cover each to give away to an extra lucky customer. As for why this is only available in Singapore, you can probably guess -- Ben & Jerry's could probably use the exposure there, and of course, the iPhone is hotter than ever in Asian markets at the moment. A similar promotion here in the US would cost a lot more and be a lot more trouble to carry out. But that is a nice-looking case. Hopefully we'll see someone give away some nice cases here in the West as well.
Android 'Ice Cream' the sweet toothed followup to Honeycomb?
Ah, the age old alphabetical dessert guessing game. Pretty soon we'll have more future Android versions named than existing ones on the market. And you know what? That's okay, because we're hungry. Apparently the President of ARM, Tudor Brown, spilled the vanilla beans to Elizabeth Woyke of Forbes, saying that Android 4.0 will be called "Ice Cream," and while it seems like a bit of an obvious choice for an "I" dessert, that's never stopped Google's crack naming crew before. (Donut, anybody?) Somehow we get the feeling that Google spends a lot less time thinking about potential names for desserts than we do, and that's alright: they've got a lot of OS work to do. Us? We just have to whine about Android fragmentation for an hour or so a week on the podcast. Hardly a full load. [Image courtesy of Robot Dreams]
Robot sells ice cream, we love him for it
Now, two of our favorite things in the world just so happen to be ice cream and robots. So combining the two could only lead to awesome things, right? Well, that's Yaskawa-kun is: a robot that vends ice cream. And yes, it's super fantastic. Currently working a Tokyo Summerland, Yaskawa-kun has a touchscreen ordering panel, and you can even watch him make your treat for you. While the video below is pretty impressive, this is one thing we just need to see for ourselves.
Ben & Jerry's app adds augmented reality "Moo Vision"
When I heard about the updated version of Ben & Jerry's iPhone app, "Scoop of Happiness," now with augmented reality, I really wanted to give it a try. After all, I've finally upgraded to a phone that can do all that neat/gimmicky augmented reality stuff, so why not? The app has a few typical (and not-so-typical) features you'd see in a restaurant or store chain app, such as a store locator. Then it has something new called "Moo Vision," which has that added augmented reality flavor. You point your iPhone's camera at the lid of one of several qualifying pints of B&J's, and, after a few seconds, you're staring at the lid with an odd 3D image atop of it. I'd love to show an example of this first-hand. The problem is, I don't eat Ben & Jerry's ice cream. So, short of looking like a real loon in the frozen food isle at the local grocery store, it wasn't happening. However, I had a little luck fooling the app by pointing it at an image on my laptop screen of one of the qualifying flavor lids. Give it a try yourself (only Milk & Cookies in the image works). I'm all for doing neat things with the iPhone camera, compass and gyroscope, but this usage appears to be severely lacking. It's more fun trying to see if you can trick the camera with a web image than it is to actually see it in full action. The Ben & Jerry's Scoop of Happiness app is currently available and free in the App Store. [via Mashable]
