Microsoft Bing Search Updates

[Napster]

Microsoft’s Bing to Be Default Search Engine on BlackBerry

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)’s Bing will be the default search engine and map application on Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM)’s BlackBerry smartphones, a boon for the software maker as it seeks expand in mobile devices and catch up with Google Inc. (GOOG)

Bing will be “deeply integrated” into the devices, creating “unique experiences for millions of BlackBerry customers,” Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said today in an unbilled appearance at the annual BlackBerry World trade show in Orlando, Florida. He said the partnership will be ready in time for the holiday shopping season later this year.

Microsoft is trying to challenge Google, whose share of the U.S. search market is more than four times larger than that of Bing. The RIM partnership also advances Microsoft’s efforts to expand in mobile devices, a campaign that includes a pact with Nokia Oyj (NOK1V), the world’s largest mobile-phone maker by unit sales.

Microsoft has added search features, stepped up the marketing of Bing and teamed up with former rival Yahoo! Inc. to increase its market share. Google had 65.4 percent of searches in February, compared with Bing’s 13.6 percent, according to Reston, Virginia-based research firm ComScore Inc.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, fell 11 cents to $25.55 on the Nasdaq Stock Market at 11:23 a.m. New York time. Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined $1.21 to $537.35. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM added 17 cents to $48.27.

Facebook, Angry Birds

RIM, the second-largest North American smartphone maker, is trying to pack more features into its handsets and PlayBook tablet to challenge larger rival Apple Inc. (AAPL) The Bing announcement was one many that RIM made to generate buzz for the PlayBook and a touch-screen edition of the BlackBerry Bold it debuted at the show yesterday.

The phone maker is looking to counter mixed reviews for the PlayBook and a plunge in its share price caused by the company cutting its sales and profit forecasts last week.

RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis said that the popular game “Angry Birds” will be available on the PlayBook soon. RIM executives demonstrated a new PlayBook app for social-networking website Facebook and the Android player, which allows BlackBerry users to download apps originally built for Google’s Android platform.

 

[Napster]

Microsoft to update Bing for Windows phone 7

Microsoft has announced that it will add several new features to its search engine 'Bing' for Windows phone 7, the new update will be available along with Mango update (next update of the OS).
The next update of Windows Phones 7, known as the 'Mango' update, will come along with an updated Bing search engine.

According to latest Windows Phone Developer Podcast, the updated search engine will have several additional features including the Bing Audio, which allows users to recognise songs (it will display the name of the title, artist etc) and will provide a link to the Zune store (Windows phone 7 applications market) for purchasing music.

Another feature called 'Bing Vision' allow phones' camera to read barcodes and perform OCR scans (read text written on a picture or document, like reading business cards etc), and provide support for augmented reality apps.


Bing Maps will also be updated, and will now feature turn-by-turn voice directions. A native podcast (similar to broadcast but delivered on phones and tablets or PC instead of TV) player is also said to be included, as well as a voice-to-text feature for texting while your hands are busy.


themobileindian.com

 

[sunveer]

Bing wins big in China, will serve results to 450 million users

With a total population of nearly 1.5 billion and an online population of around half a billion, there’s no denying China’s importance as a digital marketplace. It’s also one that has proven tricky for Western companies to operate in at times — like Google, whose famous struggle with the Chinese government over censorship issues ultimately led to the cessation of operations in China.

Microsoft, however, decided that Google’s departure was just the sort of opportunity it needed. After months of negotiations, the Redmond company has finally announced the signing of a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu that will see Bing provide English language results to its visitors. It’s a bit like the previous deal Microsoft scored with Yahoo! back in the summer of 2010.

As a result of that arrangement, Bing broke the 30% mark globally and supplanted Yahoo! as the number two search provider behind Google. Currently, Baidu maintains about an 84% share of China’s search market — which means this new deal should provide Bing with a sizable boost to its global market share.

While specific numbers aren’t given, a Baidu spokesperson said that daily English language requests numbered “in the millions” with the majority of those searches coming from municipalities looking for professionals and university graduates to add to their workforce.

While a few million searches per day won’t be enough to unseat Google as the grand poobah of search engines (it gets more than 400 million per day total), it’s still an important win for Bing. Every little bit counts, and Microsoft will happily continue inking deals like this one until it’s nipping at Google heels in the race to be number one.

More at Liveside and MSN China

 

[Niraj Rathod]

Disney XD thrills kids with its attention grabbing consumer outreach

Disney XD has introduced a first-of-its-kind, three dimensional remote controlled model of Disney XD’s lead character Kick Buttowski - Suburban Daredevil as part of its consumer outreach programme in select markets across the country. A team comprising the best-in-class minds in design and robotics --- graduates from National Institute of Design (NID) and robotics students from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Powai, have created this unique model under the supervision of Disney’s creative team. Their unique creation – a remote controlled life size model of Kick Buttowski on a skateboard is making appearances at malls across 10 cities in the next few weeks.

“Interactive experiences that connect with kids and families at multiple-levels have always been the centerpiece of our marketing activities. This first-of-its-kind innovation complements our recently launched language feeds in Marathi and Bengali which is a first for a kid’s channel,” said Bikram Duggal, Director Marketing, Walt Disney Television International India.

“Our consumer campaign with the moving Kick Buttowski and popular action superhero Spiderman on the back of a strong content push is already showing an upswing in the reach and GRPS of Disney XD in Hindi Speaking Markets (HSM),” he added.

This life like model skates unaided by itself towards kids, catching them by surprise and giving them a true Disney XD ‘moment’ of action comedy and adventure, all at once. The 3D model grooves to the music from the series soundtrack and has been worth catching at malls across the country.

The marketing team at Disney wanted to create a truly unique, memorable and world class experience of Disney XD for kids. The NID and IIT graduates were tasked to bring alive Kick Buttowski in the form of a life-sized action figure, keeping in mind his persona and physical traits, and add some fun and surprise element for kids and their families. This element of surprise gave birth to the idea of making him move around in the mall atrium and follow kids. This was made possible through the inputs of robotics students from IIT Powai who worked to attach a special motor with a remote control allowing Kick to tail kids around him on his skateboard.

Disney XD continues its prolific run as a leader in the South markets and has shown increasing traction in the Hindi Speaking Markets (HSM). The first channel to launch a six language feed, Disney XD recently announced the launch of Bengali and Marathi feeds to consolidate its presence in the north markets.
Source - Click here

 

[ssparikshya]

Set Bing Images As Your Desktop Wallpaper

Bing is one of the most popular search engine, where people search everything available on the web.In Bing Homepage we see daily an high definition wallpaper which will changes automatically.Everyday they add and change cool and natural pic automatically.




So now Bing from Microsoft developed a great app which can deliver those enormous images right on the Bing Homepage to your desktop. You can also press the Windows + H from your keyboard shortcut and the Bing search box will pop out, than you can search anything direct from your desktop.Simply what you have to do is download and Install the Bing Desktop now : http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29281&WT.mc_id=rss_alldownloads_all .

 

[sunveer]

RE: Set Bing Images As Your Desktop Wallpaper

Nice Share. I will surely try it.

 

[sunveer]

RE: Set Bing Images As Your Desktop Wallpaper

It is not installing on Windows 8 Consumer Preview. It says that windows 7 is required.

 

[ssparikshya]

RE: Set Bing Images As Your Desktop Wallpaper

ok , its not compatible with win8 , chk the compatibility

 

[ssparikshya]

Microsoft should sell its search engine Bing

NEW YORK: Microsoft Inc should sell its Bing search business to Facebook Inc, a deal worth about $5 billion that would help both companies compete with Google Inc, said Rick Sherlund, an analyst at Nomura Equity Research.

"If their real motivation for being in the search business is to prevent Google from having complete market dominance, Microsoft would be better off working with Facebook," Sherlund said today in an interview on Bloomberg Radio's "Bloomberg Surveillance" with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt.

Sherlund said Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, has "clearly lost" the battle for search market share to Google and could boost earnings by 6 to 8 per cent by eliminating the "drag" of Bing, he said. Facebook would also benefit from a partnership, Sherlund said.

"Facebook needs to be in the search business," Sherlund said. "It's an enormous monetization opportunity for them."

Microsoft already owns almost 2 per cent of Facebook, making a future agreement more likely, he said. The company would probably get back about 80 per cent of monetized search traffic from Facebook with none of the associated costs, according to Sherlund.

He estimated a $5 billion purchase price for the Bing unit, or two times 2011 annual sales of $2.5 billion for Microsoft's online services division. Sherlund projected that Microsoft will lose $2 billion from Bing this year, amounting to about a six percentage-point impact on its operating margins.

"Instead of being a depressant on margins it would be all profit to them," Sherlund said. "They're better off if their objective is to introduce more competition to Google, if they can leverage the Facebook relationship."

TOI

 

[iS THAT ME]

Microsoft's search engine Bing ‘gets’ Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

Microsoft's search engine Bing ‘gets’ Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn​

Microsoft unveiled a new design on Thursday for its second-ranked Bing search engine, introducing elements from Facebook and other social networks, as it tries to claw market share from leader Google Inc.

Slow off the mark in internet search, Microsoft has racked up losses of more than $6 billion in its online unit since launching Bing three years ago, but has yet to make a mark on Google's dominance of the lucrative ad search market.

In its latest push to increase usage of Bing, Microsoft is introducing a new, three-column screen design. Alongside the familiar search results displayed in blue to the left of the screen, Bing is rolling out an instant snapshot column, which displays extra information and links most likely to be useful such as maps, reviews and reservation tools.

To the right, it features a column of users' Facebook friends, giving them the option of asking their advice on a search. Users can also access their contacts on LinkedIn, Twitter and other networks.

Microsoft, which owns a small fraction of Facebook after an investment in 2007, has been pioneering the integration of social network feeds into internet search, being the first to allow access to real-time data from Facebook and Twitter in searches.

Google followed suit soon after and has now integrated its fledgling social network Google+ into its search engine.

Microsoft, which is losing around $500 million every quarter in its online business, largely because of Bing, badly needs to turn its search engine into a viable competitor to Google. It needs to challenge Google's increasing influence on the Internet and slow the growth of its popular Android mobile operating system, which poses a long-term threat to Microsoft's core Windows product.

Before rolling out Bing in June 2009, Microsoft's Windows search engine had 8 per cent of the US internet search market, compared with Yahoo's 20 per cent and Google's 65 per cent.

In the three years since then, Bing has almost doubled its market share to 15 per cent, but that has been mostly at the expense of Yahoo, which has had its share whittled down to 14 per cent. Google remains around 66 percent.

Microsoft sealed a search agreement with Yahoo in 2010, which means that Yahoo's searches are actually performed by Bing, with Microsoft paying Yahoo a percentage of search ad revenue.


-TOI