Filed under: Microsoft, Search
Ballmer says "search deserves a good feature war" as Bing nears release
When it publicly premiers on June 3rd, Microsoft hopes that what makes Bing different will also make it a success.
Eschewing Google's minimalism, Bing brings a different take on displaying results and added eye candy to the fight. Instead of a stark page with a dead-center search box, you'll find the input box hovering over brightly-colored full-page images. Hover over key spots on the image and factoids pop up - another nice touch that makes the search experience a little more "friendly."
Microsoft VP Yusuf Mehdi calls Bing a "more of a decision engine," designed to assist users in completing search tasks rather than making them sift through possible matches. Results are tailored to a user's query, presenting different views for searches for things like product reviews, travel information, images, and local queries. Bing also makes use of Powerset (who Microsoft acquired last year) to provide previews and snippets when hovering your pointer over results.
There will be plenty more for us to look at once Bing is rolled out. We'll check with you in a few days when the doors are fully opened and see what you think.
(update: watch MS poke fun at Google in the YouTube clip after the break)
[via TechCrunch]
So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
