The days of clipping recipes from magazines are in the past -- starting Wednesday, foodies can access the expansive online cookbook known as Foodily.

Short for "Food I Love You," the service acts as a recipe and ingredient search engine for connoisseurs of all kinds of grub -– comfort foods, epicurean delicacies and exotic dishes alike.

Launched by two Yahoo! alums, Andrea Cutright and Hillary Mickell, Foodily has already picked up a $5-million investment from Index Ventures.

Users can look up millions of recipes from websites such as the Food Network and Epicurious, even excluding certain ingredients, and compare the results side-by-side, like in a book.

But what sets Foodily apart from other sites such as Allrecipes.com or Yelp is the heavy social-network aspect. Facebook users can use Foodily to like certain recipes and check out friends' favorite dishes. It's also a one-stop dinner-planning shop -– users can plan a menu and invite friends.

"This is the way we really make decisions about what we eat -- with the advice and ideas of those in our social network," Cutright wrote on the Foodily blog.

Check out the intro video below.

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Microsoft unveiled a slew of new mobile, local, travel and social-media features for Bing in an effort to make the search engine more competitive with search-industry leader Google.

One new feature aimed at social media fans is the option to rank search results based on what a Bing user's friends have "liked" on Facebook.

Microsoft also updated its Bing mobile apps -- for smart phones such as the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7 handsets -- to enable users to make reservations using the popular OpenTable service or order takeout using Grubhub, all from within the app.

Once checked in to a restaurant using OpenTable, a Bing app user can then "check in" at the restaurant using social-media location services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places.

Another new location-based feature for the Bing apps are reminders that users can set to pop up on their smart phones when Bing recognizes that its near a specified business or place.

Bing apps also are gaining Microsoft's Streetside feature, which is similar to Google Maps' Street View. Streetside feeds panoramic photo views of city streets to the app's maps function.

Real-time public transportation information has also been added to the Bing apps. The travel info will tell users if a bus or train is running early, on time or delayed, and the app can offer predictions for arrival times.

For now, transit routes for 11 metropolitan areas are live including Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New Jersey, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Vancouver. More cities will be added in the future.

One feature that isn't available yet, but that Microsoft said it's working on, is in-Bing-app ticket-buying for sports games and other events using a service called FanSnap.

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Images: Screen shots of new Bing app restaurant check-in features on an Apple iPhone. Credit: Microsoft

McDonald's databases were recently hacked into and personal customer information was stolen, the fast-food giant said in a statement.

"Recently McDonald's was informed by one of its partners that limited customer information collected in connection with our promotions or websites was improperly accessed by a third party," McDonald's said. "Limited customer information such as name, address, phone number, birth date and gender was included in the information that was accessed."

The data that the hackers were able to get was compiled from consumers who signed up to receive e-mails from McDonald's on the websites mcdonalds.com, mcdonalds.ca, mcdonaldsmom.com, mcdlive.com, meencanta.com, monopoly.com, playatmcd.com and 365Black.com, the statement said.

The data did not include credit card information or other financial or personal info, the company said.

McDonald's didn't offer a date as to when the cyber attack took place and officials for the chain were unavailable Monday afternoon.

The company said in its statement that a business partner, Arc Worldwide, was developing a list of its customers' e-mail addresses to send them promotional e-mails.

Arc, whose officials were also unreachable Monday afternoon, hired an e-mail service provider to supervise and manage the e-mail database, McDonald's said.

"That e-mail service provider has advised that its computer systems recently were accessed by an unauthorized third party, and that information, including information that customers provided to McDonald's, was accessed by that unauthorized third party," the burger chain said. "Law enforcement officials have been notified and are investigating this incident."

In its statement, McDonald's sent out a warning to its customers as well.

"In the event that you are contacted by someone claiming to be from McDonald's asking for personal or financial information, do not respond and instead immediately contact us ... so we can contact the authorities," the company said.

McDonald's is asking customers who think their information may have been stolen in the Web attack to report any suspicious contact to a toll-free number: (800) 244-6227.

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Image (top): A screen shot of 365black.com, a McDonald's website that compiled some customer information that was recently hacked and stolen. Photo (bottom): A McDonald's in Fullerton, Calif. Credit: Christine Cotter / Los Angeles Times

Upon spelunking around for Valentine's apps in Apple's now-massive App Store, I was amazed to find that there are at least dozens of Valentine's-related applications. I probably shouldn't have been surprised, given that close to 150,000 apps are available. That means apps are just getting more and more specific and the average usefulness level is very likely dropping.

The idea of 150,000 apps is hard to conceive of for us children of the software-in-box era, when the shelves of CompUSA or Software Etc. probably held no more than a couple hundred titles at once. And even most of  those were barely worth a second look.

That said, not everything in this world needs to be useful -- and for the price of four rides on the mechanical horse outside the supermarket, you can amuse yourself for minutes with a variety of odd and silly applications centered on just about any theme or topic. Why not?

I only ask that you wipe your phone clean after testing out these apps. It's a family holiday.

Now, then ...

Kluckr founder Mark Gilmor enjoying a chicken wing. Credit: Kluckr

For most mobile applications you can dream up, there is probably, as the commercials say, an app for that. But some companies are changing the phrase: there's an app just for that.

For example, let's say you want to find a restaurant that serves good chicken wings. Most iPhone users know there are apps for that.

You could fire up Google Maps, which comes with the phone, and search for "wings." Or you could do the same in Yelp and get a list of reviews. Or look through Junaio for an augmented reality lens of local eateries.

But if you want to find the absolute-best wing joints in the area according to people who know, you'll probably want to turn to Kluckr. The app is specifically designed for finding wings. That's it.

The app is the first experiment in food niches by Kluckr founder Mark Gilmor ("founder" being the title we prefer over his official one, which is Big Ol' Kluckr).

"People that use Yelp are interested in restaurants in general," Gilmor, 39, said on the phone last week. "I want to get focused on really specific food groups."

You probably won't see buffalo wings on the food triangle any time soon, but the meal does carry a connotation. It's primarily male-focused, and wing restaurant owners confirm that Monday Night Football and the Super Bowl are among their busiest times.

If you've ever stepped foot inside a Hooters, you know the target demographic -- "guys between 18 and those who haven't seen their cardiologists yet," Gilmor said.

To mark my transition from intern to full-time journalist with the L.A. Times, I started a cross-country drive on Monday, which I have been blogging for the L.A. Times Daily Travel and Deals Blog.

But this isn't your grandfather's road trip. I didn't even take a paper map.

Instead, I'm relying on an iPhone and a laptop, with tools such as Google Maps for directions to each city and crowd-sourced suggestions from readers, Twitter users, blog commentators and review site Yelp for places to stop.

Online social media have proved an invaluable tool for getting an array of travel tips from locals without actually being in that city. And because I'm a huge music fan, websites such as Upcoming are helping me to find rockin' concerts along the way.

The next stop on my two-week road trip from New York to Los Angeles is Detroit. If you have tips for music venues or other hot spots in Hitsville or any other city along the way (click "Read more" to see my itinerary), post comments on this blog post, send tweets to @mmilian or e-mail mark.milian@latimes.com.

To follow my road trip status live, visit twitter.com/mmilian. For daily recaps, visit Be My Guide on the Travel Blog.

-- Mark Milian

There is a topic that has been wrapping itself around the Web's collective consciousness for some time. And within the last year or so, this meme has become so potent that it can no longer be ignored.

The sizzling phenomenon? Bacon.

If the innumerable blog posts about the salt-cured meat are to be believed, bacon can be added to just about any food, used in place of cotton and leather, and is enshrined on restroom blow-dryers around the country.

What can bacon do? Apparently, it can serve as a lampshade, an iPhone carrying case, a watch, an alarm clock or the building blocks for a creepy-looking "bacon man" shrine. Are people actually carrying around bacon briefcases? Let's hope not.

A meme -- the flavor of the week that propagates quickly through e-mail and chatter on social networks -- can come in many forms: a feline that speaks with poor grammar (Lolcats), a goofy '80s pop singer (RickRoll) or a chubby kid bopping to a Romanian dance song (Numa Numa).

Bacon is as popular as any. Even as I was writing this piece, I was interrupted by a Twitter update containing a link to a photo of a bacon bra.

Yet, no matter how many new bacon products spring up, it seems as though a new one is always a day away -- waiting to delight StumbleUpon users, provide a chuckle for Diggers and appear in dozens of Twitter feeds.

Not that Twitter needs any more fodder for bacon chatter. A common complaint about the short-blogging service is that it's just an avenue for people to tell the world what they're having for lunch. Unsurprisingly, you'll find ...