what a bunch of fuckheads...^
anyways, im trying it out for a little while to see how it works. here are some of its features. the flight checker and package tracker so far have come in handy.
Interface features
Daily changing of background image. The images are mostly of remarkable places in the world. The background image also contains information about the element(s) shown in the image. You can view the information by hovering over the image. The background images can be switched off and switched on
Content sectioning of results (separate section for wallpaper, map, weather, fansites and more)
Left side navigation pane. Includes navigation and, on results pages, related searches and prior searches
Right side extended preview with list of relevant or important urls from within the article
Sublinks. On certain search results, the search result page also shows section links within the article (Wikipedia)
Enhanced view where third party site information can be viewed inside Bing. This works for Wikipedia pages
[edit]Media features
Video thumbnail Preview where, by hovering over a video thumbnail, the video automatically starts playing
Image search with continuous scrolling images results page that has adjustable settings for size, layout, color, style and people.[16]
Video search with adjustable setting for length, screen size, resolution and source
[edit]Instant answers
Sports. Bing can directly display scores from a specific day, recent scores from a league or scores and statistics on teams or players.
Finance. When entering a company name or stock symbol and either stock or quote in the search box Bing will show direct stock information like a stockchart, price, volume, and p/e ratio[17] in a webslice that users can subscribe to.
Math calculations (e.g., 2 * pi * 24).[18] Users can enter math expressions in the search box using a variety of math operators and (trig) functions[19] and Bing will provide a direct calculation of the expression.
Package tracking and tracing. When a user types the name of the shipping company and the tracking number Bing will provide direct tracking information.
Plane ticket info. When 'flights from (to)' is entered in the search box in combination with city names or airport codes Bing provides info on ticket prices and a prediction for the future price trend.
Flight status. When 'flight status' and/or a flight number is entered in the Bing search box, Bing provides direct current information on the flight status of the particular flight.
Car info
Celebrity rankings (xRank)
Celebrity news
Encyclopedic answers (What is the capital of Germany?). If the search phrase entered in the search box contains a simple question whose answer can be found in the Encarta encyclopia, Bing provides a direct answer to the question from Encarta.
Dictionary. When 'define', 'definition' or 'what is' followed by a word is entered in the searchbox Bing will show a direct answer from the Encarta dictionary
Spell check. Will change frequently misspelled search terms to the more commonly spelled alternative. This feature cannot be disabled or avoided.
Best match (plus similar sites)
Product shopping and Bing cashback
Health info
[edit]Local info
Current traffic info
Business listing
People listing
Collections
Localized searching for restaurants and services
Restaurant reviews
Movies played in an area. When a current movie title is entered in the search box Bing will
provide listings of local theaters showing the movie. When a city is added to the search
box, Bing provides the movie listings localised for that city.
City hotel listings. When 'hotels' and a city name is entered in the search box Bing can
provide hotel listings with a map. The listing leads to a detail search page with the hotels listed that holds extended information on the hotels and contains links to reviews, directions reservations and bird eye view of the hotel. On the page with the listings the list can be refined by settings on ratings, pricing, amenities, payment and parking
[edit]Integration with Hotmail
With Hotmail’s "Quick Add" feature, users can insert derivatives of Bing search results such as restaurant reviews, movie times, images, videos, and maps directly into their e-mail messages.[20]
[edit]Search products
In addition to its tool for searching webpages, Bing also provides the following search offerings:[21]
Service Description
Health Bing Health refines health searches using related medical concepts to get relevant health information and to allow users to navigate complex medical topics with inline article results from experts. This feature is based on the Medstory acquisition.
Images Bing Images enables the user to quickly search and display most relevant photos and images of interest. The infinite scroll feature allows browsing a large number of images quickly. The advance filters allows refining search results in terms of properties such as image size, aspect ratio, color or black and white, photo or illustration, and facial features recognition.
Local Bing Local searches local business listings with business details and reviews, allowing users to make more informed decisions.
Maps Bing Maps enables the user to search for businesses, addresses, landmarks and street names worldwide, and can select from a road-map style view, a satellite view or a hybrid of the two. Also available are "bird's-eye" images for many cities worldwide, and 3D maps which include virtual 3D navigation and to-scale terrain and 3D buildings. For business users it will be available as "Bing Maps For Enterprise".
News Bing News is a news aggregator and provides news results relevant to the search query from a wide range of online news and information services.
Shopping Bing Shopping lets users search from a wide range of online suppliers and marketer's merchandise for all types of products and goods. This service also integrates with Bing cashback offering money back for certain purchases made through the site. This feature is based on the Jellyfish.com acquisition.
Translator Bing Translator lets users translate texts or entire web pages into different languages.
Travel Bing Travel searches for airfare and hotel reservations online and predicts the best time to purchase them. This feature is based on the Farecast acquisition.
Videos Bing Videos enables the user to quickly search and view videos online from various websites. The Smart Preview feature allows the user to instantly watch a short preview of an original video. See also Soapbox on MSN Video
xRank Bing xRank lets users search for celebrities, musicians, politicians and bloggers, read short biographies and news about them, and track their trends or popularity rankings.
[edit]Webmaster services
Bing allows webmasters to manage the web crawling status of their own websites through Bing Webmaster Center. Additionally, users may also submit contents to Bing via the following methods:
Bing Local Listing Center allow businesses to add business listings onto Bing Maps and Bing Local
Soapbox on MSN Video allow users to upload videos for searching via Bing Videos
[edit]Mobile services
Bing Mobile allow users to conduct search queries on their mobile devices, either via the mobile browser or a downloadable mobile application. In the United States, Microsoft also operates a toll-free number (1-800-BING-411) for directory assistance called Bing 411.[21]
[edit]Other services
BingTweets is a service that combines Twitter trends with Bing search results, enabling users to see real-time information about the hottest topics on Twitter. The BingTweets service was initiated on July 14, 2009 in a partnership between Microsoft, Twitter and Federated Media.[22]
[edit]Toolbars, gadgets and plug-ins
[edit]Toolbars
Both Windows Live Toolbar and MSN Toolbar will be powered by Bing and aim to offer users a convenient way to access Bing search results. Together with the launch of Bing, MSN Toolbar 4.0 will be released with inclusion of new Bing-related features such as Bing cashback offer alerts.[21]
[edit]Gadgets
Bing Windows Sidebar gadgets
Live Search Gadget was a Windows Sidebar gadget that uses Live Search to fetch the user's search results and render them directly in the gadget. Another gadget, the Live Search Maps Gadget displayed real-time traffic conditions using Live Search Maps.[23] The gadget provided shortcuts to driving directions, local search and full-screen traffic view. However, only traffic data from 23 selected US cities are supported, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Providence, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa, and Washington DC.
On October 30, 2007, both gadgets were removed from Windows Live Gallery due to possible security concerns.[24] The Live Search Maps gadget was made available for download again on January 24, 2008 with the security concern addressed.[25] However around the introduction of Bing in June 2009 both gadgets have been removed again for download from Windows Live Gallery.
For using Bing directly from your browser Microsoft has created several accelerator and webslice addons.
[edit]Accelerators
Accelerators allow users to access Bing features directly from selected text in a webpage. Accelerators provided by the Bing team include:
Bing Translator
Bing Maps
Bing Shopping
[edit]Web Slices
Web Slices can be used to monitor information gathered by Bing. Web Slices provided by the Bing team include:
Weather from Bing
Finance from Bing
Traffic from Bing
[edit]Plug-ins
The Bing team provides an official Bing Firefox add-on, which adds search suggestions to the Firefox search box from Bing.[26]
[edit]
