food

Foursquare gets a face-lift for a better all-around experience (First Take)

By now, "checking in" at coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and sporting events is a common practice across many apps, but it was Foursquare that really made this social activity popular.

Before the announcement, I had a phone interview with Alex Rainert, head of product at Foursquare. Rainert says Foursquare has listened to user feedback and has torn apart the current app for both iOS and Android and rebuilt it anew to make browsing locations around you an easier and richer experience.

With the latest version of Foursquare, the interface has been completely reworked to a much cleaner design … Read more

Bigger isn't always better for mobile ad clicks, report says

When it comes to advertising on mobile devices, bigger screens don't necessary equate to more clicks.

Although the Amazon Kindle Fire's popularity may be dipping, a mobile advertising company says that users of the 7-inch tablet click on more ads than do those who use the 9.7-inch Apple iPad.

Jumptap, a company that focuses on targeted mobile advertising, released a report today containing data related to mobile devices, fast food ads, and the Kentucky Derby.

While the Kindle Fire may have the highest percentage of actual clicks on advertisements for the first quarter of this year -- … Read more

Want fries with that? The best cooked tech

Consumer gadgets can be very addictive. Almost as addictive as french fries, onion rings, and anything else you can cook in hot oil. Even the gadgets themselves.

Photographer Henry Hargreaves has captured our insatiable hunger for new technology with a series of startling images of deep-fried electronics. We already knew we were digital junkies, but these images don't go down so easily. … Read more

9-year-old's blog shames school into changing food

When it comes to heart attack rates, Scotland appears very high in the charts.

However, sometimes it takes awhile for a nation's diet to begin to counter its habits.

At one Scottish school, indeed, it took a 9-year-old girl to write a blog describing, among other things, how some dishes at her school occasionally included hair.

Martha Payne's blog, Never Seconds, is a litany of well, solicitude.

For each school meal, she offers a Food-o-meter rating (how much she likes it), a mouthful count, a healthy rating and a number for how many pieces of hair were in … Read more

Super Diet Genius app puts superfoods to work

Diet apps are a dime a dozen. And with good reason: your smartphone is the ideal mobile companion for counting calories, managing exercise, and tracking overall health.

The latest entry into this crowded field: Super Diet Genius. What separates this $3.99 app from the likes of Lose It, Calorie Tracker, and MyFitnessPal? It's all in the "super."

Specifically, Super Diet Genius puts you on a diet that relies heavily on superfoods -- stuff that packs the maximum vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and overall nutrition goodness. (You know: not pizza. Not candy bars. Not French fries.)… Read more

With space, vacuum sealer makes some noise

Cluttered kitchen countertops don't exactly scream out for new gadgetry. Even when the learning curve is small, space may simply be an issue. So when an interesting appliance comes along, sometimes it can fall upon deaf ears. Change it up and make it into a form factor that can be held in the hand and suddenly people might start to listen.

For many, the concept of a vacuum sealer is sound, but the space the large, blocky appliance normally requires makes it a no-go. The Caso Hand Held Vacuum Sealer features a rechargeable battery and cordless operation. Docking into … Read more

Foodspotting helps you find the best dishes in your area

Looking for the best place to get a specific dish in your area? Foodspotting for Android can help.

Say you're looking for the best snickerdoodle cookie in San Francisco. You could run a search on Yelp, which would pull up a list of all the bakeries and restaurants in the area that make them. But then you'd have to look at each profile, one by one, and click through to see pictures of each restaurant's cookies...if there are pictures of its cookies. If that sounds too tedious, then try Foodspotting for Android.

Searching on Foodspotting is … Read more

Foodspotting helps you find the best dishes nearby

Looking for the best place to get a specific dish in your area? Foodspotting for Android can help.

Searching on Foodspotting is … Read more

Tasty little recipe app one-ups Google

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- When Victor Penev, CEO of Edamam, took the stage here at Demo today and told the audience he was going to show off a recipe finder iPhone app, I was dubious. His statement, "This is so not 2001," didn't help.

App stores are lousy with recipe apps. Many are quite good. I use Epicurious, which I love, and when it doesn't give me what I want, there's Google. I didn't think there could be an opportunity for a new recipe search product.

Edamam is a meta recipe finder, but there'… Read more

Scan, spin, and shop with the DinnerSpinner app

The Allrecipes.com DinnerSpinner app (free) lets you quickly find recipes and easily build grocery lists. If you like games of chance or dislike the first step in preparing any meal -- finding a recipe -- you'll enjoy the DinnerSpinner. And for more targeted searches, you can use the app's new bar code scanner, which arrived with an update earlier this week.

The main screen of the app is the DinnerSpinner, which features three spinnable rows of meal attributes: Dish Type, Ingredients, Ready In. You can manually swipe through each row and make your selection, or you can … Read more