Google cooks recipes

   Google will now cook recipes into its search menu in a way that lets people easily find instructions for whipping up dishes in the kitchen.

   A "Recipe View" feature that Google is rolling out in the United States and Japan turns the search engine into an online cook book of sorts.

   "My parents follow the art of cooking by intuition, where the right amount of each spice is measured out by gut feel, but that's never worked very well for me," Google product manager Kavi Goel said while introducing Recipe View.

   "As a math geek and computer engineer, I prefer to work with concrete numbers and instructions, including when cooking."

   The feature narrows search results to only recipes along with ratings for each option.

   Recipe search terms can range from names of dishes to favoured foods, such as strawberries, or holidays. Searches can be filtered by calorie count, cooking time, or ingredients.

   "We like to 'eat our own dog food' at Google, meaning we like to test our own products and features ourselves before releasing them for public consumption," Goel said.

   "With Recipe View, we've taken this more literally than usual."

   The feature is to be rolled out to other countries after it becomes more seasoned.

Gingerbread + Honeycomb = Ice Cream Biscuit ?

   Eric Schmidt the CEO/Chairman of Google addressed the company s keynote at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Schmidt had a few surprises in store for us.

   Schmidt started the keynote by expressing his disappointment about the Nokia and Microsoft deal.

   He said, "We would've loved if they chose Android. They chose Windows. The offer to adopt later is still open. "We certainly tried."

   Schmidt also clearly outlined that Google did not see Facebook as a threat but Microsoft was a more direct threat with Bing improving by leaps and bounds.

   He stated, They have scale, brand, and reach to do good things. Facebook today appears to be additive. Facebook users use Google more, no evidence Facebook advertising is hurting Google's in any way. Right now, Facebook is zero to net positive, and Microsoft is a core competitor and will likely remain so for a long time.

   Schmidt took the time clarify all the confusion related to the different versions of Android. An also stated the expected version of Android will combine features of Honeycomb and Gingerbread.

   Schmidt said, "Today I'll use the commonly used names. We have OS called Gingerbread for phones; we have an OS being previewed now for tablets called Honeycomb. The two of them... you can imagine the follow up will start with an I, be named after dessert, and will combine these two."

   Schmidt also clarified that Google had launched the Chrome OS specifically for keyboard devices while Android was meant for touch-based devices. But he hinted a convergence of both the operating systems could take place in the future once the technology was more mature.

   Schmidt also announced a new app called Android Movie Studio which would allow creation of media. This app reminded us of the iMovie app Apple launched last year with the iPhone.Google faced some embarrassment as they were facing network issues and they could not complete the demo of the app.

Google to Add 2-Step Verification

   Passwords are a pain sometimes. Use the same one at too many places and you risk losing everything, use too many different ones and they’re too difficult to remember. Google are now trying to avert these problems by adding another layer of security to Google Accounts– two-step verification. 

   Google will first ask for your password, then a verification code that you can obtain using your phone. This is similar to the system introduced for Google Apps customers a while ago. This will added in the next few days, with a new link poised to appear on your Account settings page.

   If you’re absolutely sure no one else will be using your computer, you can even set the account up to remember your verification code for a 30-day period, following which you’ll have regenerate and enter it again.