Food is one of the most intricate arts in existence. One must consider many factors while cooking, including preferences, ingredients, times and consistency. To some this art comes natural; others need help even to make cup noodles. Regardless of your culinary skills, though, we could all use some handy internet tools to make the process simpler.
Google is doing this by adding convenient filters to your food search results. Your Android device will now help you find recipes based on calories, cooking time and ingredients.
We know there is a sea of recipes out there, and what makes cooking interesting is the variety in styles. We all make our dishes differently, even if only by a little. The process can also change if you are on a diet. What if you don’t like meat? Just filter it out!
All you have to do is open your browser and do a Google search for your favorite dish. After that, simply tap on “More” and select “Search tools”. The filters will then show up and be ready for action.
Google uses lasagna as an example, a dish that is very popular and does come in many kinds of styles. As you can see in the image, you can easily select whether you want to add the ingredient or not. I decided to go nuts and try these features with one of my personal Mexican dishes – mole.
This is one of the most complicated sauces to make and it is very popular, making it the perfect example. It was easy to filter through ingredients and find my favorite kind of mole (there are many kinds). Of course, there were very few options for cooking this dish under 15 minutes.
Furthermore, it seems to be impossible to get a recipe of mole with under 300 calories per serving. In fact, even the ones under 500 calories made a lot of sacrifices. Aside from making me feel like the most unhealthy eater, this function worked like a charm and I can say I will be using it often.
Back in April we first learned that Aereo planned to bring Chromecast support to its TV streaming app on May 29th. Unfortunately, they ended up missing their original goal, but today a new update has pushed out bringing the ability to cast your shows over to Google’s popular media streaming device.
The new feature is perfect for cordcutters that are in areas that have poor free over-the-air TV reception. For those unfamiliar, Aereo is only available in select U.S. markets right now but it basically pushes local TV stations over the web, giving you the ability to not only watch all your favorite local programming — you also get DVR functionality for saving your favorites and pausing and rewinding live TV as it happens.
The catch to Aereo? Aside from only having limited market support, the service also costs $8 a month and the company is currently caught up in a legal battle with TV networks to determine whether it will even be able to legally continue to offer its service to consumers.
To grab the latest version of the Aereo app, you’ll want to head over to Google Play now. For those looking to learn more about the Aereo service, you can find more details on their website.
Start with English search results, websites that are not able to correctly redirect mobile viewers will soon be called out by Google Search. Many websites redirect smartphone browsers to the mobile homepage regardless of the page requested.
“Have you ever used Google Search on your smartphone and clicked on a promising-looking result, only to end up on the mobile site’s homepage, with no idea why the page you were hoping to see vanished? This is such a common annoyance that we’ve even seen comics about it.” - Google Webmaster Central Blog
Going forward, if the redirect is faulty then the primary link will be deactivated and the website will be displayed differently in mobile Google Search. Users then see a small gray “May open the site’s homepage” option which appears below the faulty result. If the viewer wants to visit the site anyway, there will be an option to visit the site.
Webmasters will start seeing messages from Google prompting them to adopt “responsive design,” or to fix their redirect structure so that users are taken to the page they requested.
If a website’s page continues to be redirecting smartphone users to their homepage, Google will send the site owners a message on Webmaster Tools in the ‘Smartphone Crawl Errors’ section.
Android 4.4.3 is here, bringing tons of bug fixes and even a few noticeable improvements like a redesign Dialer app. The update has already officially started pushing out to a number of devices including many Nexus tablets and phones, and even Google Play Edition handsets from HTC and Samsung.
Of course, there’s more than one way to get in on the Android 4.4.3 action. For fans of OmniROM, you’ll be happy to know that nightly builds dated 2014-06-05 or later will now be based on 4.4.3. The code merger is thanks to the efforts of of OmniROM’s Xplodwild.
At the moment there are 13 devices that offer nightlies based on the latest version of Android, this not only includes handsets like the Galaxy S4 and HTC One M7, but also several tablets including the Xperia Tablet Z and Galaxy Note 10.1 N8000. Of course, the number of build are expected to grow over the course of the next few days.
While you can download the nightlies directly, the changes will also be available through Omni’s inbuilt delta OTA updater. For more details you’ll want to hit up OmniROM’s blog or you can check out the list of builds by clicking here.
Samsung eased the functionality overload on the Galaxy S5, holding off on new features and removing some of the older ones that users didn’t really care about. But let’s face it, the S5 is still stuffed to the gills with features large and small, to the point that even seasoned users can feel overwhelmed. That’s why we appreciate the series of blog posts on Samsung Tomorrow where the company is going through some of the lesser known features of the device, and today’s post is all about audio.
Here are the Galaxy S5’s audio features that Samsung thinks you should know about:
If you use your Galaxy S5 as a voice recorder, Interview Mode and Conversation Mode let you reduce that pesky ambient noise that sometimes drowns out what you actually meant to record. In Interview Mode, the Galaxy S5’s two microphones “focus” on the front of the device, where your interviewee should theoretically be located. In Conversation Mode, the two mics listen to the front and the back the device. Of course, you can always switch to Normal Mode, and have the Galaxy S5 record omnidirectionally.
Listening to music is a subjective experience, so the Galaxy S5 tries to learn and apply your preferences with Adapt Sound. Think of it as a way to calibrate your device’s audio output, the way you would calibrate a PC monitor the first time you use it. If you go through the calibration with your headphones on, the phone will remember to apply the specific settings the next time you plug your buds in. Handy.
SoundAlive is Samsung’s name for what looks to be just a plain old equalizer. There are two modes – in Basic, you get to choose from a grid of presets like Jazz or Classic, while in Advanced, you get access to a 7-band equalizer, plus options for 3D, Bass, and Clarity effects.
This awkwardly named mode adjusts the volume of your voice when you talk to the phone, so it sounds more uniform, regardless how far from your mouth you hold the device. In theory, this should result in better audio for the person you’re talking to, and to fewer cases of “I didn’t get that.” The feature is also supposed to help with conference calls on speakerphone.
Finally, Extra Volume is a recurring feature that lets you pump the volume of a call by an extra level, even if you already set it to the max with the volume rocker.
There you have it – while many users will never need these features, it doesn’t hurt to know that the Galaxy S5 has them. Have you tried any of them? Anything else worth mentioning?
Remote desktop connection on a Nexus 5
A small update bringing immersive mode is rolling out to Google’s new Chrome Remote Desktop app.
The update changes version number to 36.0.1985.39 and, immersive mode aside, doesn’t seem to change the app’s functionality. In the previous version, the persistent toolbar at the top of the UI was taking up precious real estate, especially on smartphones. Now the remote desktop can be viewed and used in full screen mode, with an unobtrusive button at the top allowing you to bring back the toolbar. The update is only available to Android 4.4 KitKat users.
Google launched the Remote Desktop Android app in April. The app requires the target computer to run the Chrome browser with a special extension installed. In our testing, we found it fast and responsive, although it’s not the most feature-rich remote app of its kind. TeamViewer and other options for remote desktop connection are available in the Play Store, but Google’s app is free and easy to use, and should be good enough for most non-pro users.
To skip the wait for the update, XDA-Developers’ Will Verduzco uploaded a Google-signed .apk file that you can safely install.
