AllThingsD » recipes

Google Makes It Easier to Sift Through Recipes

Voices — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 23:02:59 +0000

In the latest of Google’s ongoing efforts to promote Better Living Through Algorithms, the search sovereign is rolling out Recipe View, which strains out extraneous results from a recipe search and lets you filter for specific ingredients, cooking times and calories.

A Device Does Everything But Sing

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:02:13 +0000

Just when you think you can’t fit anything else into an all-in-one device that already prints, copies, scans, and faxes, HP ups the ante. The HP Photosmart eStation e-All-in-One performs all those tasks and includes a seven-inch, touch-screen tablet computer that doubles as a display when snapped onto the printer. This tablet lets users do things like check email, Facebook or weather, but I can’t imagine using it much as a stand-alone tablet, at least in its current version. And people who just want basic printer functions may grow tired of the tablet’s extra features.

Over the years, printers have progressively shifted from PC accessories to devices that can work independent of PCs. They started small, as dedicated 4×6 printers that had built-in memory-card readers and used basic photo-editing capabilities, and have matured into models like last year’s HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web that offered apps for printable things like maps, coloring book pages and recipes.

[ See post to watch video ]

The $400 HP e-All-in-One (http://3.ly/DP8b) takes this concept a step further by enabling even more independence from the PC because its tablet—named the Zeen—is more robust and can browse the Web, check email in a dedicated email program and run a limited selection of apps. It also works as a stand-alone tablet when detached from the e-All-in-One, though it only connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi rather than a cellular connection. It runs on the Android 2.1 operating system, but can only access certain apps rather than any app in the Android Market.

Perhaps an even more important new feature is that this all-in-one will print anything emailed to it from any device connected to the Internet, thanks to ePrint, a cloud-based printing system. This system assigns an email address to the e-All-in-One during its set-up and almost anything sent to that email address will print out, including attachments, no matter where the email is coming from.

One catch is that you must only send the document to the e-All-in-One’s email address and can’t CC anyone else or add another address to the “to” line of the email. A spokesman for HP said that this is done to prevent spam print-outs because batches sent to several people won’t print.

HP also has an exclusive relationship with products running Apple’s latest iOS 4.2 operating system for hand-held devices. Apple’s iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches now have a built-in feature called AirPrint which allows them to print anything directly to HP’s new ePrint printers as long as these devices and the printer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. I tested this several times using an iPhone and it worked, printing Web pages, emails and photos. I liked the ease of using ePrint and AirPrint. Printouts looked sharp and printed quickly.

But I found the concept behind the e-All-in-One’s detachable tablet screen to be both alluring and confusing. It’s great to be able to do more with the printer’s touch screen and apps—but you don’t want to stand at a desk looking down at this screen, so it makes sense that the tablet is detachable. On the other hand, tablets often work in place of printed paper. I use my iPad for things like finding a recipe online, standing the iPad on my kitchen counter and cooking from that on-screen recipe. If I used the eStation All-in-One like that, I would ultimately print less often, which seems to defeat the purpose of having this big thing in your home. The HP eStation All-in-One measures about 18 inches wide and about 14 inches deep.

HP’s Zeen tablet can be detached from the e-station, but its uses as a stand-alone are questionable.

In order to save energy, the eStation All-in-One goes to sleep when it hasn’t been used for 15 minutes. This is a fine idea for environmental reasons, but in sleep mode, it also turns off its connection to the local Wi-Fi network. This means that if documents are emailed to its assigned address it may not print if it’s not awake and online. An HP spokesman said the company recently issued a fix for this problem that wakes up the printer when something is sent to it, but not all printers have been updated.

The Zeen tablet’s battery recharges every time it’s docked in the eStation All-in-One’s base, and HP estimates that its battery life is around four to six hours with Wi-Fi turned on. Hard buttons for volume and power are hidden on the Zeen’s back edge, as are speakers. A spokesman for HP said that eStation All-in-Ones will be updated early next year to run Android 2.2, which is faster and plays Flash videos.

The Zeen’s four gigabytes of internal memory hold roughly 100 apps, 35 of which come pre-loaded on the tablet. These include apps for MapQuest, Disney, Facebook and the Barnes and Noble bookstore, from which digital books, magazines and newspapers can be purchased and downloaded. Photos, videos, music and other files must be stored on an SD card in the Zeen’s SD card slot.

All documents sent to the e-All-in-One using HP’s ePrint can be seen online at hp.com/go/ePrintCenter as long as users register their printer and set up an account, which I did in about two minutes. Here, too, users can add or remove apps from their printer. I preferred adding and removing apps directly from my Zeen tablet’s screen, but it takes some digging to find the Add More icon for adding apps. Over a dozen HP products support ePrint; they range from $100 to $450.

The concept of ePrint is a smart one, but the printer’s tendency to go into sleep mode to save energy is a problem. I like that the Zeen tablet detaches from the e-All-in-One, but its functionality as a tablet with limited apps and capabilities isn’t very sensible.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Countertrend: H-P Says Please Print Often

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:18:02 +0000

If your company makes printers but general trends are leaning toward using less paper and moving digital content to e-readers and smartphones, what can you do? Hewlett-Packard’s solution is to find new ways to get people to print more.

The $399 H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with Touch-Smart Web (hp.com/go/touchprinting) will print, copy, fax and scan like other all-in-ones. But it connects to the Internet using built-in Wi-Fi and displays customized Web applications on its 4.33-inch touch screen. These apps are designed to promote printing in any way possible, including photos from Snapfish, Sudoku puzzles, movie tickets from Fandango, coupons, maps from Google (GOOG) Maps, coloring-book pages and news articles—all without using a computer.

[ See post to watch video ]

The print apps are part of the new H-P App Studio, H-P’s (HPQ) answer to the flurry of app stores—Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry World, Android Marketplace, Palm’s (PALM) App Catalog and Microsoft’s (MSFT) Zune Marketplace—that ease the process of downloading onto mobile devices. A “Get More” icon on the printer’s touch screen presents descriptions of available apps. There are currently 15 available for download onto your printer, and more will be added in coming months.

The Photosmart All-in-One connects to Web apps that promote printing of everything from photos to tickets.

This printer is designed to work with more than just the H-P App Studio. A downloadable tool called the H-P Photo Print Gadget installs on computers running Windows 7 or Vista (not Windows XP) so people can drag and drop photos to it for printing. PlayStation 3 owners can capture and print screen shots as evidence of their game success. And a long-available free app in Apple’s App Store called H-P iPrint Photo lets iPhone and iPod Touch owners send photos to this and other H-P printers.

The goal of this product is obviously to get people to print more, and in my case, it worked. I used more paper in a week of testing the Photosmart Premium All-in-One than I normally print out in three weeks at my office. The printer quickly churned out dual-sided pages with photos in rich colors.

But the concept of adding apps to a printer while also asking people to become more paper-reliant seems like one step forward, two steps back. I could see this concept working on a thin, stylish printer that could fit neatly on an entryway table, making it a cinch for people to grab maps, movie tickets and coupons on their way out the door. But this is a large, all-in-one machine that takes up some serious space.

And if this all-in-one is truly meant to work without a PC, it should do a better job of letting you interact with pages, like zooming in on a document to preview before printing. In the current document preview screen, the text is too small to read. Likewise, the Google Calendar app printed a nice one-page calendar month view, but I couldn’t zoom in on the print preview to see specific appointments. This forced me to print the page to see its contents, using more ink and more paper.

Other apps are shamelessly begging users to press Print. A Toys and Crafts app made by H-P itself includes paper dolls with cut-out clothes that can be snipped and folded to stay on the doll’s form. For the doll’s face, kids are encouraged to use a photo of themselves that–surprise, surprise—they can print using their all-in-one.

Coupons.com supplies two apps—one for coupons and one for recipes. I browsed through 87 product coupons in my ZIP Code and marked those that I wanted to print using a small check-box on the touch screen. Pressing “Print” compiled three coupons on one piece of paper. Recipes from Coupons.com printed with brightly colored photos of the end result; I’m looking forward to following one for Curried Chicken Salad.

For now, the Google Maps app isn’t ready for prime time: It prints only maps, not directions. H-P says it’s planning to add directions but wouldn’t say when. And a Nickelodeon app couldn’t load on my printer. Some apps took from 10 to 30 seconds to load—precious time when you’re running out the door.

One of the smartest apps, Tabbloid, lets people assemble a personalized tabloid-style print-out of news from a variety of sources like Daily Kos for politics and FanHouse for sports. But this assembling must be done on a computer, thus negating this printer’s no-PC approach. I chose from a list of 10 topics including automotive, celebrity, politics and sports and created a printable Tabbloid that, with one click, was sent wirelessly to the corresponding app on my printer. I printed it out to read during my commute.

I liked using the Photosmart Premium All-in-One’s generous screen for touch gestures like flicking left-to-right through a carousel of icons that represent apps. An on-screen keyboard appeared when I had to type in passwords for things like my Snapfish account.

H-P says it will introduce other products with TouchSmart Web capability and access to the HP App Studio, and one hopes these products will include low-end printers rather than expensive all-in-ones. The apps on the H-P Photosmart Premium All-in-One with TouchSmart Web are user-friendly, but I’m not convinced they’ll incite people to print more things more often.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Apple: 1 Million 3GS Handsets Sold

John Paczkowski — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:44:46 +0000

[ See post to watch video ]

HP Announces PC-Free Printer

John Paczkowski — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 17:00:04 +0000

Hewlett-Packard ushered in a new paradigm for printing today, one absent the PC. This morning the company announced a wireless touchscreen printer that will allow users to print documents from the Web without ever using a PC or browser.

The device, dubbed HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web–a grand mountain range of a name if there ever was one–features integrated touch access and a selection of print apps through which users can find news, maps, coupons, movie tickets and recipes from the likes of USA Today, Google (GOOG), Fandango and Coupons Inc. Price: $399.

“Twenty-five years ago we invented consumer printing and today we are taking advantage of the content explosion and reinventing the category by launching an entirely new printing platform–powered by touch and empowered by the Web,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, HP Imaging and Printing Group. “By giving people access to the content they want at the touch of a finger, the ability to customize their printing experience and create their own apps, and enabling easy ‘one touch’ wireless set up, we are driving a significant shift in how people will be printing in the future.”

Not quite sure how significant a shift this represents. Is printing from the typical PC really so tiring and troublesome that it needs to be eliminated? In any case, here’s the HP (HPQ) press release:

HP Introduces World’s First Web-connected Home Printer
New applications platform revolutionizes printing in web-connected world

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22, 2009 – HP today unveiled the world’s first web-connected home printer: The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web.

HP is bringing the power of the web directly to the printer and combining it with HP’s TouchSmart technology to give people quick, easy, touchscreen access to popular digital content.

Designed for the digital generation and connected households, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web features an entirely new web-based printing platform with HP applications (apps). Similar to other Internet-connected devices, these apps, which are viewable on an extra-large, intuitive-to-use TouchSmart panel, allow people to connect instantly with fun, informative and personal content.

In addition to receiving apps preloaded on the printer, people can download new ones as they become available at the HP Apps Studio to suit their interests and needs. With the sweep of a finger, users will be able to browse and view popular web destinations and simply touch the app of their choice to launch a web page where they can customize and print content on demand in an easy-to-read format.

As pioneers of this new content-on-demand delivery platform, the world’s first HP app partners will be USA TODAY, Google, Fandango, Coupons.com, DreamWorks Animation, Nickelodeon, Web Sudoku and Weathernews Inc. Through these apps, people will have free access to customized daily news, maps, coupons, coloring pages, movie tickets, recipes, personal calendars and more – all at the touch of a finger.

The new printers also will connect directly to a user’s Snapfish account to view, print and upload photos. People additionally can access projects from the HP Creative Studio.

People will be able to create and share their own apps to customize their printers through the HP Apps Studio starting in late 2009. “Twenty-five years ago HP invented consumer printing and today we are taking advantage of the digital content explosion to reinvent the category with an entirely new printing platform – powered by touch and empowered by the web,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “By giving people access to the content they want at the touch of a finger, the ability to customize their printing experience and create their own apps, and enabling easy ’one touch’ wireless setup, we are driving a significant shift in how people will be printing in the future.”

Free HP apps available at launch
Industry leaders from the worlds of news, entertainment and information are the first to offer free apps debuting on the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web. Consumers will be able to print daily, weekly or monthly news from USA TODAY, updated in real time and customized according to their interests, such as sports, news and politics.

“Today marks another change in the way our readers can access news and information as we bring print-on-demand to consumers’ homes,” said Jeff Webber, publisher, USATODAY.com. “People can print the latest stories from USA TODAY at the touch of a finger to better fit their busy, on-the-go lives.”

From Google Maps, consumers will be able to enter their destination and print a map; from Google Calendar, they will be able to print their weekly schedule to place on their refrigerator or bulletin board.

With Coupons.com, users can save money by printing coupons for groceries, restaurants, entertainment and more. People also can browse and print recipes for quick, easy meal planning.

Consumers will be able to search movies in their local area from any one of Fandango’s 16,000 theater screens across the country. They can then buy tickets in advance and print their tickets at home or the office, helping ensure an easy and convenient movie-going experience.

To empower busy families, the printer provides one-touch access to fun coloring pages and templates from DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon. Through the DreamWorks Animation app users also will be able to view movie trailers to upcoming releases without having to log on to a computer. Nickelodeon printables will include color-ins, word finds, mazes and more from top properties, including “Dora the Explorer,” “The Wonder Pets!,” “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “iCarly.”

For commuters, Weathernews Inc. provides a weekly forecast to allow for informed travel planning. With Web Sudoku, people can quickly print brain teasers for light entertainment on the go.

World’s first web-connected printer
The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web has an extra-large 4.33-inch touchscreen – the largest LCD touchscreen of any all-in-one inkjet printer on the market.

The versatile printer prints, faxes, copies and scans – producing laser-quality text documents and lab-quality photos – making it ideal for multitasking households. With a full range of wired and wireless connectivity options, the printer provides the flexibility to print directly from Wi-Fi-enabled PCs, Bluetooth®-enabled devices, the Apple iPhone and the Apple iPod touch using HP iPrint Photo.

ENERGY STAR® qualified, the all-in-one printer helps users save paper with automatic two-sided printing and reduces packaging waste by shipping in an innovative, reusable bag made from recycled plastics.

Pricing and availability
Expected to be available this fall, the HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web will retail in the United States for a target street price of $399.

HP Total Care
HP products are backed by HP Total Care, the company’s award-winning service, solutions and support, both in and out of warranty. The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web comes with an exclusive toll-free telephone support number for quick access to trained experts who will help people get the most from their printers.

HP support professionals also are available 24/7 by phone, email and real-time chat. HP’s online support options include consumer support forums, online classes offered at no charge, a dedicated support video channel, the PC Tune-up Center and the newly designed HP Customer Care site, recently named one of the “Ten Best Web Support Sites of 2009” by the Association of Support Professionals.

Customers also can access printer diagnostics and software driver updates with HP Printer Check. More information is available at www.hp.com/go/totalcare.