Microsoft Bing Search Launches Early Preview
An anonymous reader writes to mention that Microsoft has rolled out a preview version of their Bing Search site earlier than expected. Microsoft's hope at putting a dent in Google's ubiquitous search presence, Bing has several new features including Bing Cashback, Bing Video, and Bing xRank. "Bing Video is really great because of the new thumbnail video feature. Try searching for E3 at Bing Video and you'll quickly see how it works. Simply hover over a video and it starts playing instantly. This is fantastic from the consumer's point of view but what about the publisher? It's almost like Microsoft is stepping on their toes by deploying video search in this manner. Would a user still click on to the site if they can watch the whole video from within the search results? Fair use definitely comes into mind here. Perhaps there should be a 30second limitation on the 'thumbnail preview?'"
What's interesting, for me, about other search engines and their "usability" is the fact that my eyes are trained to parse google results. Google search results look official and informative. I can't use Yahoo or MSN (or Bing for this matter) because their search results look sterile.
Sometimes it's the lack of information- as little as giving me the page size (7kb). Sometimes it's the margins. Bing has a left margin. Google doesn't.
I'm not saying that these differences make a BAD difference, except this: Internet users learn quickly about scams. The first time I accidentally clicked on those fake search results on an ad-search mis-direction page, I learned to pick up on these differences quickly.
In fact, it's subtle, but you can usually tell when a computer has an infection that hijacks your google results- because they don't look right (older infections changed the results, new ones redirect REAL results.. but that's a different conversation).
The point is- my mouse won't go near, let alone click, on things that I think are tricks or advertisements. For some reason, I trust google a lot. So much that my eyes are trained to see it's results and disregard others. I'm reluctant to click on bing results.
I encourage slashdot users to try bing out, and tell me it doesn't look foreign to you! Tell me you don't feel weird clicking it's results! The internet trains you quickly that you are to embrace familiarity, because you will be quickly punished for not doing so.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
I guess I'll just have to Google it.
just go Bing it!
I am a meat popsicle.
It's google with a background image, a flashy video preview and a not quite right page layout.
and no one uses it after a quick burst right after it is announced.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Add www.bing.com/fd/ls/* to your filters.
While it might be useful to watch video thumbnails to quickly find something, I don't think I'd actually watch entire videos in thumbnail mode. There is a reason my monitor is larger than EGA and I no longer use a 56.6 kb modem. Why watch thumbnails?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/5423736/Microsofts-Bing-under-fire-for-porn-video-access.html This might be how Bing will become popular - using Bing video to bypass porn filters!
Clicking or hovering over a video is inane crap. Do the hard stuff please, it involves some rather advanced mathematics and shit load of computers, not flash/javascript.
Google are btw getting worse at finding the stuff I need, so there's an opening there.
Deleted
www.BingIsNotGoogle.com
... But It's Not Google
comparison
What first impress me is the huge amount of ads in the search results. Searching for "sql server" I can only see two real results before having to scroll the page and is hard to distinguish the ads on the top of the page, from the real results.
Video mouseover is kinda cool in bing, until it spits some action script error at you and then crashes your browser.
Ok, seriously... what's with that 80 KiB background JPEG on the homepage?
Image search is actually nice, though I would put the filters at the top instead of the left. The results leave a bit to be desired (tried "portable mame cabinet", hoping to find something I looked at a few days ago - no luck there). Also, scrolling down loads more pictures automatically. No need to go to "page 2" for more results. That's actually nice. The size/weight info on hover is a nice touch too.
We don't want lots of flashy stuff in a search engine. Just give us the simple results with no fluff.
I gotta admit that some of the previews looked enticing (shopping/price comparison) but doesn't that start bringing Bing into other territory in competition with other review sites?
It is the whole issue of features vs. bloat: where do you go with features that seem great, and where do you stop... because if you don't stop you start making something so clunky and unwieldy no one can use it.
If they can make grokking the web easier I think that will be great, but knowing Microsoft there will always be that little thing wrong that just throws you off...
And aside from the expanded snippet feature (which is pretty clever) I don't see anything new or exciting. WTF?
no interface means anything without the index and data to back it.
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Big surprise, the video refuses to load unless you have Windows Media Player. Despite the fact that I view wmv's all over the net just fine with mplayer, yet somehow MS can't seem to make this work. Typical. MS needs to get a clue and realize that they can't expect to gain market share in new areas if they lame out all of their products to try and reinforce their OS monopoly. They don't seem to be able to see the flip side of their reasoning, which is that loss of OS market share will be amplified in their other products rather than mitigated. Do they honestly expect to pull market share from youtube while telling users to go away until they install windows?
Rather than trying to compete on general research against Google, Bing's strategy is to select the targeted queries as the search for goods and services (travels, restaurants, cars, etc). I cannot comment on the outcome but the idea is very good especially since such queries are the most likely to bring the $ dollars from advertisers. However, the trick is good but I see nothing that Google cannot ultimately counter ...
I realized just now that if some other company had started up and created a new search engine called "Bing" I would probably find it really charming. But when Microsoft does it, it just seems like The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show. The human subconscious is a player-hater.
---don't make me break out my red pen.
It may as well be Microsoft. Right now, Google has no real competition.
Altavista was always good enough for me
I really liked Alta Vista also - when it supported boolean queries with the NEAR keyword. I really miss that NEAR keyword, it could transform a search so easily into something worthwhile. When Alta Vista morphed into a yet another Google-style search, I moved to Google.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Apparently, Microsoft has acquired the domain bingsucks.com.
Technoli
hi slashdot
wtf, scientology ads on the site now?
i rock up and see the gaudy thing to the right
fail
it's not april first, so that's out. maybe some other joke I don't quite get?
This was just a typo that stuck. What happened was bill typed a message to some underling searching for his Bong that he misplaced and typed bing instead of bong. Someone saw the word "Search" and Bing" in the same email and had a brain fart.
When I moused over video results, it seemed to do "skip play", fading out and in between jumps, as it "sampled" the video in 7 second clips. After 3 clips (from throughout a 20 minute video), it looped. Very nice for getting a feel for the video contents and quality.
So I don't understand the beef about "Would a user still click on to the site if they can watch the whole video from within the search results?" because the user clearly can't watch the whole video from the search results.
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
I Binged (Bung?) and found myself, which indicates that Bing works well ;). I got approximately the same stuff as with Google.
-- Cheers!
Truly awful. Very annoying layout. It's just a cynical marketing rebranding to attract eyeballs to the miserable failure that was live.com. Vintage M$, absolutely pathetic and contemptible. "Bing" yeh, right - well done boys.
But it fails to answer this important question!
Notice how Google gets it right.
* The reponse from a Bing search: "Bong" (like 'Ping' and 'Pong')
* A person who searches on Bing: A binger (or is 'banger' a better word?)
* When referring to Bing search results in the past tense, it's a "Bang", like "Ring" and "Rang". Or maybe it's "Bung", like "Ring" and "Rung".
Hm... I didn't mean to make rude comments about Bing, but the name kind of lends itself to some bad nicknames.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
A common typo for me is hitting "o" instead of "i".
>> Bing has several new features including Bing Cashback, Bing Video, and Bing xRank.
A typo of that sort renders these, "Bong Cashback", "Bong Video" and "Bong xRank". Those search terms could easily result in fetching sites distinctly, NSFW.
Bing thinks I'm from the UK, presumably based on language settings, rather than in New Zealand, (which it could determine from IP.).
I noticed that also.
Here are the first four "Search suggestions" for when I type "linux":
linux
linux windows
linux microsoft
linux vista
Is this because Microsoft inserted itself into those search suggestions? Or is it because the majority of Bingers are using Microsoft products and thus the results are skewed ?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
...hear Stephen Tobolowsky as Ned Ryerson in Groundhog Day exclaiming "BING!" every time they read the word?
Also, does anyone else ponder why Microsoft's product names are either really generic and boring, or totally cheesy and cringe-worthy?
~Philly
I just had a look. Man what utter dogshit. It has pretty much copied Googles thinking on minimalist, but even fucked that up with a picture background. Morons.
To my mind, it's just a bad copy. And the name, man, which tard thought that up.
I really hope MSN stays were it is, insignificant. Only because it would be nice to see MS NOT win due to $$$ for once.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Ubuntu 8.04 all updates, Intel Atom 230, Intel GMA 945, Firefox, Noscript, Adblock Plus, Gnome, No compiz, sk_SK locale.
When I search "foo" on bing.com and then click for search images, Xorg suddenly get 98% load.
When I switch to another tab load go back to 0%.
Anyone has same behavior?
The video site is unusable (literally) if you have the debug version of Flash Player installed. I keep getting this error popup which says Error #2044: Unhandled AsyncErrorEvent:. text=Error #2095: SmartPreviewNetStream was unable to invoke callback onMetaData. error=ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property onMetaData not found on SmartPreviewNetStream and there is no default value. at SmartPreview() at SmartPreview_fla::MainTimeline/frame1()
It doesn't merge results from a same website.
that said Bing.
To learn more about Bing, type "bing search engine" into Google.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
If I'd hit your link on accident I'd have assumed it was just another domineer squatting a high value (?) name. Who ever designed the page layout probably doesn't know the first thing about composition, my eyes can't seem to decide where to focus because all the blocks seem to be competing. Like an uglier version of google with over 1/3 of the top of the page (all you see before scrolling) dedicated to advertisements with not one, but TWO search boxes (the second simply to search within microsoft.com) which will probably frustrate and confuse as many users as it might help.
Quack, quack.
Well it is http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bung
2: the cecum or anus especially of a slaughtered animal
The Happy Lil' Elves Magic Forest Company is still a viable provider of onsite security and defense. Don' let their name fool you.
I drank what? -- Socrates
Nobody has registered bingsucksballs.com yet.
Quack, quack.
Bing's OK. But it's nothing special. Even if it's technically superior in certain ways to Google--I can't tell so I'll leave that for the intellectuals to tease out--there's no particular reason to switch.
I have NEVER had a problem finding stuff on Google. Usually what I'm looking for appears in the first 10 hits. About 10% of the time, I need to rephrase my search, or add some "-" keywords to weed out some signal noise. But Google does the job, I'm used to it, and it seems to just keep getting better.
There is so much power hidden inside Google's engine--stock quotes, mathematical calculations, language translation, mapping, document conversion, caches of deleted pages, paid links that I actually find useful, typo correction--the list goes on and on and on!
What can Microsoft's search engine add to this stunningly rich resource that millions of us can't live without? What killer features does Microsoft give us? Some little tweaks here and there in the UI that may or may not make much difference. Some good ideas on supplemental information such as the "related searches" column on the left.
Sorry, Microsoft, but Bing looks like MSN Search that's been tweaked a little. If Google didn't exist, you might have a winner on your hands, but this is just another "me, too" search system that will survive only as a niche product, funded by profits from the MS Office and Windows divisions.
Any market penetration by Bing will probably come from super-glueing it to the Windows 7 desktop and Windows mobile handhelds, defaulting it on IE searching, and otherwise forcing it down customers' throats in whatever way they can, hoping a large enough population will be ignorant enough to just use the defaults. But now that "google" is a verb in the dictionary, Microsoft has its work cut out for it to hold and expand its little piece of the search market.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
How about trying before complaining? The video preview only shows excerpts of the video it links to.
I tried Bing for about ten seconds and saw no immediate reason to switch from Google.
Yawn.
This is my sig.
Fifth result from Bing on searching for the word "test", copied exactly:
#
*
Domain Not Valid
This domain is not valid. Hosted by Network Solutions.
* test.test.com
* Cached page
...and upon hovering over a video still, I get this:
Error #2044: Unhandled AsyncErrorEvent:. text=Error #2095: SmartPreviewNetStream was unable to invoke callback onMetaData. error=ReferenceError: Error #1069: Property onMetaData not found on SmartPreviewNetStream and there is no default value.
at SmartPreview()
at SmartPreview_fla::MainTimeline/frame1()
I guess nobody at MS tested their results with the debug version of Flash Player?
Your brain is not a computer.
I predict this will be every bit as useful and well received as other Microsoft innovations like Microsoft Soundsmith and Bob! I'm sure plenty of people will use it just as long as they are paid to do so... but that isn't a very viable business model for a search engine.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Amen. Google are the cool guys standing around. Microsoft are the obnoxious nerds forcing themselves onto the group, pretending to belong.
Under the www.bing.com/xrank page, when you look under the 'Politicians', number one for today is Melissa Hart, and clicking on her takes me to a page with all three links for the actress Melissa Joan Hart and not the politician.
bing has some homework to do. The preview seems a little pre-mature.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
Typical MSFT logic again. The official blog describes 'Bing' as "the sound of found". Problem is - I haven't started looking for anything yet, WHY IS THERE A SOUND? Furthermore, even MSFT admit that to compete with Google you need a name that can become a verb - so WHY DID THEY DESCRIBE 'BING' AS OFFICIALLY A SOUND (which is a noun)?? And then the name keeping chiming in your head - Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing! - like a bad commercial jingle that is stuck there and makes you hate it, despise it, and swear never to touch it - no matter how good it actually is. I'm guessing that would be roughly 50% of the population that MSFT still will not convince.
That weird line+dot isn't just a visualization. Get your mouse close to it to see some relevant info pulled from the page at that location.
The way it's trying so hard to ape Google. In a way, it's a bit like those netbook distros that try to disguise Linux as Windows.... sweet irony.
I'm not trying to be anti-Slashdot here by not automatically bashing Microsoft, but the search results are pretty nice. On the left you can mouse over to see a preview of the page... seems to be helpful since Google *always* manages to cut off the description right before the part you need! The video search is awesome! I can mouse over and see if it's really the video I was looking for or just a poser. Also works great for porn.
The definition showing up right in the results is nice, instead of having to always click "define" and wait for another slow-ass dictionary site to load. However, their spell check sucks. I tried typing "pthisis" when I meant "phthisis" and then I had to go to Google to find the correct spelling!
Obviously it's not completely ready yet to compete with Google, but they have some pretty good interface improvements which I hope Google will copy one day.
It's an automatic fail for me...
I live in Ireland, and quite often I like to search only within Ireland. Google and Yahoo detects that I'm in Ireland. Bing automatically redirects to the UK. ROI != UK
Anyone else notice this ?
some users of IE6, including yours truely, have had their systems "Hijacked" by Bing. No matter what registry settings are switched, Bing has become the default search engine. We cannot "Customise" the search settings. I wonder how many others have this problem or if anyone has a solution.
Hopefully Slashdot will pick up on my story below (help me out, and comment on it)
http://slashdot.org/submission/1011681/Microsoft-Forcing-Bing-on-Users
It's the Luxemburgish slang word for "jail". I kid you not, as I am Luxemburgish (genetically only half) myself.
Reminds me of the German school newspaper in my final school, that was called "Flapp" (pronounced "fluhpp")... which is Luxemburgish for "turd".
I'm eagerly awaiting Microsoft Flapp to come out too. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
...my bingaling, won't you play with my bingaling.
Bing has a calculator.
1 + 1: http://www.bing.com/search?q=1+%2B+1%0A&filt=all
2 * pi: http://www.bing.com/search?q=2+*+pi&go=&form=QBRE
2 miles in feet: http://www.bing.com/search?q=2+miles+in+feet&go=&form=QBRE
etc
Google finds more porn.
234 million vs 230 million results.
AFAIK, suggested results are generated by going through what users have already searched for. It's quite likely that a pre-beta search engine, which has so far been prominently used by Microsoft employees or partners would have a "bias" towards Windows.
Looks like most of these people have been looking for Linux and Windows comparisons instead trying to download Linux.
If you search for allinurl you get a white page.
I've been "bung" !
Google's natural language query features are so spotty that you can't ask a question and expect an answer with any reliability. For example, similar to your example, "How tall is Barack Obama" answers me correctly. "How old is Barack Obama" does not.
"Florida Unemployment Rate" answers me. "Florida Minimum Wage" does not.
And on and on.
And in different areas, it really does shine. For example:
Farecast integration, eg TPA to ORD:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=tpa+to+ord&filt=all
Search-the-site box, eg New Egg:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=New+Egg&go=&form=QBRE
Guided Search Sidebar, eg atrial fibrillation:
http://www.bing.com/search?q=atrial+fibrillation&filt=all
And the hover states for search results are impressive. It doesn't just pull the first X bytes, it parses the entire page and returns a synopsis as best it can. These features were from Powerset and they've done a good job with them here. Similarly, the hovers on image search.
I don't know if Bing will gain any traction or not. But at the very least it's the 2nd best search engine available and it's been live for about 12 hours now...
I Do Not Want to have a video start playing when my mouse happens to hover over it.
Vibrant adspam is bad enough.
Probably. If MS had seeded Bing, it's unlikely that the first site from "Linux Vista" would produce a pro-Linux site.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
"Bing" - it just sounds like a group of guys tried to analyze the appeal of the name "Google" utilize the same formula for their own name. The name Google never particularly appealed to me, neither did their logo, but their service functioned better than the competitors. Copying an existing business model in every way and attempting to use marketing to gain the upper hand is just fucked up. I wish I could say that it didn't work, that quality and originality are important to consumers, but, well, it's worked for them so far. I really like how Google's handled them so far, so perhaps they keep ahead.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Aack! It makes noise if I hover in the wrong place! .... Which is to say, it plays the sound for the video when I hover over the clip that's been found. You'd expect that, and you'd want it in a situation where noise isn't a problem, but it would mean muting my speaker whenever I do a search at work.
And all this fuss is for a search engine?? Well, Google is doing a Web browser so I guess this completes the ying yang of the industry...
I thought I might have found the switch with the "back/forward" button at the lower right.... but it was just there to urge me to install Silverlight. Grrrr.....
I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
Does anyone else think Bing is a stupid sounding name?
I have a better one.
Bling!
Use Microsoft's new search and get all the Bling! you've been missing with other search engines.
That says it all.
This ad space for rent.
What can Microsoft's search engine add to this stunningly rich resource that millions of us can't live without? What killer features does Microsoft give us?
Make it the default search engine on Windows 7's Internet Explorer 8 (or whatever is the latest version du jour once Bing matures beyond beta).
Thus the 80% market share who keep using the broken IE because it does their job, they are used to it, and they don't want going through the hassle of installing something new, will automatically start using bing.
(And won't bother going to google, as bing does their job and they don't want going through the hassle of trying to understand how you configure a new search engine in a browser or what the hell are Mycroft plugins)
Being a monopoly, Microsoft has the immense advantage of being able to leverage the laziness and fear of efforts of changing of the sheeple.
Meanwhile, some EU politicians will probably burst an aneurysm.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
years of experience say: "there are not accidents"
Memorable quotes for Groundhog Day (1993)
Ned: Phil? Hey, Phil? Phil! Phil Connors? Phil Connors, I thought that was you!
Phil: Hi, how you doing? Thanks for watching.
[Starts to walk away]
Ned: Hey, hey! Now, don't you tell me you don't remember me because I sure as heckfire remember you.
Phil: Not a chance.
Ned: Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. Ned Ryerson: I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing! Ned Ryerson: got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson: I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple times until you told me not to anymore? Well?
Phil: Ned Ryerson?
Ned: Bing!
Phil: Bing.
you search google for videos, clicking the link will take you to the owner's webpage (or whatever page the video is hosted on).
I searched for "SCCA", and while it does show the hosting domain (IE> Youtube, etc), when you click to watch the video opens IN BING, it doesn't open the content hosters home page.
Personally I can see content owners getting pissed by this and possibly suing. It's no different than if google shows a summary of a news site article, but when you click the link, instead of pulling up that news service page, google loads the full article in THEIR OWN PAGE without any credit, etc going to the news service. Plus the hosting site loses any revenue from ads.
If Microsoft doesn't correct this, I can see a robots.txt file going up on a good number of sites. How long until Bing crawls Hulu and other sites of that nature and starts issues with Hulu and content owners/providers?
I've played with it a little and Bing seems to be pretty decent. The problem is that I am so used to using Google for searching that it is a hard habit to break. I don't see myself using Bing like I use Google unless I make it my default search engine and force myself to use it (which I'm not really willing to do since Google does the job just fine). The only way I would make the switch is if Bing provides better search results. This has yet to be seen from any Google competitor...
Kickass Cheap Web Hosting
awesome results with the default "moderate" safe search enabled.
hah.
Type in Linux vs Microsoft in the search field and watch what it brings up. Just enough to laugh at if it wasn't so skewered.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
The search suggestions are related searches
* Linux Download
* Ubuntu Linux
* Linux Operating System
* Linux Mint
* Linux Software
* Puppy Linux
* Linux XP
* Damn Small Linux
Not what you mentioned.
Either MS staff is looking at slashdot comments in realtime and redefining the priority :)
or the decision engine learns very quickly about the search trends
or you lied.
see above discussion. It is more likely be the result of the fact that, most of users of the pre-released Bing are Microsoft employees. Not many of them have searched for your favorite distro. Broader user base now may shift the algorithm to display different phases in near future.
Call BS all you want, I just visited bing.com for the very first time, typed "linux" into the search field, and verified for myself that GP is correct.
The suggestions I got, in order, were:
* linux
* linux windows
* linux microsoft
* linux vista
* linux commands
* linux download
* linux software
* linux distros
It knows I'm coming from Canada, so if you're getting different results where you are, maybe geography plays a role?
It knows I'm coming from Canada, so if you're getting different results where you are, maybe geography plays a role?
I think he's just trolling. It's the second of three very similar posts.
That interface is so close to google it's kinda eerie. Try the image search, down a layer etc... Well what part of this surprises me? None. I mean, c'mon, it's about time after all the Vista fiasco etc.. .that they (M$oft) got back to the business model that works for them. Find a good product, copy it, then offer it free to drive the other guy out of the market, then charge for "features and addons".
M$oft FTW
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Oh, and instead of searching for what I typed in, it "helpfully" translated it to Chinese and searched for that instead. Conclusion: bing sucks, it's totally unusable - I'd rather use baidu. My ¥0.01.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"Plays instantly" means "will be used to publish viruses within a week of being introduced."
Idiots.
can it understand 1 + 2 ?
I tried searching for this phrase (don't ask why):
"six seven eight triple nine eight two one-by two"
Google gave me the correct results, Bing gave me something totally bizarre about the Oshkosh Titans.
I can add bells and whistles to the results myself using Greasemonkey, thank you. The server's responsible for good, relevant results, and this is not happening right now.
xRank: when all else fails, put an "x" in front of the name.
Well, this is also something I use quite regularly. I checked it out on bing, and it looks like it works like on the other search engines. Same queries for google, yahoo and bing returned almost the same results (bing rounds to 6 digits, yahoo doesn't do complex equations):
The calculation is: 200 AUD in CAD
Bing returned: 200 AUD = 177.00 CAD after a sponsored site
Yahoo returned nothing in terms of calculations
Google returned: 200 Australian dollars = 176.673866 Canadian dollars with no sponsored sites preceding it
wolfram Alpha returned C$176.72 with a historical graph of exchange rates as well as other exchange rates against the AUD!
I did another set of calculations: 500+100*5
Bing returned: 500+100*5 = 1,000 with no sponsored sites followed by a lot of search results
Yahoo returned: 500+100*5 = 1,000 followed by a lot of search results
Google returned: 500 + (100 * 5) = 1 000 with no search results
wolfram Alphs returned 1000 as expected, but also spelled it out and gave me the SI prefix kilo for it
I did a SQRT(9) and sin(90) calculation, only yahoo didn't return a calculation, bing and google did (sin (90) = 0.89...). Wolfram Alpha also went "above and beyond" a simple answer by spelling out the answer (three) to the SQRT question, but also gave a visual representation (***). For the sin(90)it recognised that it is in degrees, and gave me the correct answer of 1.
The german version of http://www.bing.de/ is censored by default and so far I couldn't find an option to turn it off.
Even search results for words like Strumpfhose(tights) are censored and not displayed.
So this makes the decision easy....
Weird, I also got the "linux windows" results and I am searching from Poland on Firefox on OS X.
All works fine for me on centos with firefox.. I'm quite liking it so far. Its nice to have a usable alternative to Google at last.
Guess what, Google is not mentioned there.
Haha
Even nicer, try to search "google" and "microsoft" on bing. Compare.
I for one wouldn't trust a search engine so biased.
But It's Not Google
Fair use has got nothing to do with it. If a site makes a video publicly available, they're implicitly granting permission for anyone to download and play it. Whether that's directly, or through an intermediate site, is neither here or there.
So, I went to try Bing. Clicked in the search box, and got a dropdown, with all my Google searches from last week.
WTF?
How did they even get hold of those data in the first place? The browser should prevent that. And no, I'm not using IE, but Chrome.
Addendum: Ok, tried the same thing in Firefox. It doesn't happen there. So it might be a (serious, imho) bug in Chrome, perhaps related to the name of the text field.
Funny, the first think I thought when I tried a search on Bing was: they copied Google's layout entirely. The search results are formatted similarly, adverts with a colored background appear at the top, other text adverts at the top-right. The only substantive difference is the area on the left with "related searches".
The Google results remain qualitatively better, at least in my quick test. Google tends to give the home-page of a useful site at the first hit. Bing's top results seem to be either sites that link to a useful site, or else content pages deep within a site. Frankly, the same kind of poor results that I associate with MSN. Perhaps Bing nothing but a new face on an old search engine?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Google Maps seems to do a better job than Bing - I had a bit of trouble getting Bing to point out a street address. It pointed out the nearest freeway offramp, which is kind of useful, but I had to find the map point of the street address myself. It took a bit of mousewheeling to find the right scale for it too. Google just does it.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
This is just flat out wrong - typing "1+1" into Bing comes back with "Calculation: 1 + 1 = 2"
This morning, our dear leader Steve Ballmer is unveiling our completely new search service, unrelated to anything we at Microsoft have ever done before: Bob Hope.
We spent lots of time listening to you, except when you told us how much MSN Search^W^W Live Search^W^W Kumo sucked ’cause you're just wrong about that, to learn which buzzwordy Web 2.0 thingies you use search for today. Finding a webpage that has anything to do with the search terms you entered is so passé, dahling.
So today we're introducing a new kind of search, that goes beyond traditional search engines that do tedious things like find stuff, to instead help you make faster, more informed decisions. (Windows 7 is peachy keen, by the way.) We think of Bob Hope as a Decision Engine. We've sued Stephen Wolfram into atomic dust using our patents on FAT and Mono, co-opted the Wolfram Alpha engine and swapped Mathematica for Visual Basic and Wolfram's brain for the exhumed corpse of Bob Hope.
So why did we pick Bob Hope as the new core of our search? We needed a brand that was as fresh and new as our approach. It needed to be like the product: optimized for the Internet. A name that was memorable, short, easy to spell, and that would function well as a URL around the world.
And just look at these results!
What do we want?
Braaains.
When do we want them?
Braaains.
What do I need to run Windows 7?
Braaains.
What's Bill Gates got that means you should buy everything you can from the company he founded?
Braaains.
What's the final proof of Steve Ballmer's equal genius to Steve Jobs?
Vistaaa.
This is something new, something improved! You need to try it! It'll give so much more betterer results than that other search engine we can't name because Steve will wedge another chair up our butts! Please, come and try our new and improved service! FOR GOD'S SAKE TRY THE DAMN SERVICE. OR THE PUPPY GETS IT. We're Microsoft. We're serious as a heart attack on this one.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Is Microsoft taking learning from the Beta/VHS war? VHS took the lead with support of the adult industry. As an underdog in the search war, Bing seems to play very well with X-rated search results.
If you click on Bing Videos and search for a graphic term (such as "Sasha Grey" or "double anal") you'll get unsolicited access to hundreds and thousands of videos. Which ARE playable right then and there bypassing ads and pop-ups. Similar to wankspider and the other porn search engines out, Bing actually works...
Methinks MS is aware of how well Bing works with porn. Has there been a major Search engine that has been this Sex-friendly before? I don't believe so and this might give Bing a strange edge and actually gain some market share. If teen males start using Bing to find porn, I'm sure they'll still use Bing occasionally as college students and working adults.
Btw, try searching for "Vixta." It's a Linux distro and Bing will return the Vista home page as the first result, whereas all other engines return the Vixta source-forge page... Hmm...
I actually did the search for "linux" on both engines and compared... and I liked the results I got from bing.com over google.com =X.
Related Searches and Search History are very neatly placed and are far more useful than Google's ads.
It would be nice to add a calculator to Bing, but that seems trivial.
They DO have maps as well O_O bing.com/maps/
This could be a very legit competitor to Google. Competition is good.
In the past 2 decades we gave Microsoft the keys to the whole software universe. This was the absolute wrong thing to do. We did this by supporting their technologies blindly. We didn't look forward enough into the future, and Microsoft's own eye toward the future wasn't disclosed to us. As a result we end up with a company that has become a criminal monopolist in no less than 3 continents and 4 nations.
I know, personally, that the use of embrace, extend, extinguish is a very bad thing for our industry and it has killed more competition and closed more markets in favor of Microsoft than anything else. Lock in technologies are a bad thing. Trade journals are trying to sweeten it up by calling them lock in of defacto standards. This shows a skewer in Microsoft's favor. Why? Because trade journals rely on advertising and through advertising they make their money to pay salaries, and Microsoft has the money to make that a little easier on the trade journals.
The problem lies in that we the consumer gave them the keys by giving them the ideas that they could implement within the scope of their embrace, extend, extinguish--and in the end cost us dearly in the area of competition, which is supposed to bring innovation along with it.
To watch Microsoft's bing give biased results skewered in their favor is not a positive thing. It is a very harmful thing.
For this reason, and for their past indiscretions, we should not be giving them the formula to solve their problems. Let their products fail without us telling them how to succeed at destroying more competition. Bing is not important. We've been finding what we need on google just fine for a long time. We don't need to have another product concocted by a criminal monopolist which is showing straight out of the gate that they are baised.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Interestingly, it shows completely different results for me. I still get the same list today.
Your bing search profile may behave different from mine.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
188,000 results
BING Is Not Google