Interesting picture on Bing today!

So, what’s the word for “twenty three” in Arabic?

The Bing Translator answer:

The Google Translate answer:

?!?

I asked for driving directions between China and Taiwan, so here’s what I get.

Google:

Seriously? Swim across the Pacific Ocean? Good luck with that.

Now, let’s try that on Bing.

Hope your car insurance has water coverage if you depend on Google Maps.

Today’s picture on Bing United States homepage.

Toyota has announced Toyota Entune, its upcoming in-vehicle navigation (GPS), entertainment and information experience. Entune will be made available on select models in 2011.

Entune offers advanced voice recognition, integrated mobile apps and can be upgraded.  Available on select models later this year,  Bing for Mobile will ship as a featured app of Entune, giving drivers access to over 16 million points of interest (PoI).

You can pair a phone with Entune via Bluetooth and you can access Bing via the in-car dashboard or simply speaking instructions out loud. You easily can search for destinations, points of interest eg. a restaurant or fuel station.

I think this is great progress with Bing. Bing is steadily grabbing search engine share, with Google admitting Bing as their biggest threat. Very recently, Windows Phone 7 was released, which featured a hardware “search” button on every device that would bring up Bing as the search engine on the cellphone.

Interesting observation by Mary Jo Foley of the ZDNet “All about Microsoft” blog.

I quote:

On June 3, however, Google did something that really surprised me. The company that’s made its reputation on home-page minimalism announced it was going to start allowing users to change the Google.com background by adding their own customized photos from their PCs and/or Picasa. Google will begin phasing in the new customization option in the U.S. first, and extend it internationally in the coming days, officials said.

Bing, which turned one-year-old today, has been offering users different Microsoft-selected photo backgrounds each day. The Bing background photo also includes a number of hotlinks inside the photo, allowing users to obtain more information via Bing on the subject of each day’s photo selection.

Can you see the headlines if MIcrosoft had decided to modify the Bing home page and make it more like Google’s (and like the original WIndows Live Search)? “Microsoft copies Google!” “Get out your photocopiers (again) Redmond!” The reaction to Google’s announcement has been quite subdued in comparison….

I too wonder why this never made the headlines. If it were Microsoft using anything remotely similar to Google on the Bing website, it would have made high waves on the blogosphere.

You can add a Bing custom search box on your website over at bing.com/siteowner.

I replaced the default Google-powered search box on my blog with a Bing custom search box today. For a good reason.

My regular readers may have noticed that I changed the URL to my blog about two months ago. I had set a “301 Permanent Redirect” on the previous domain (blog.shijaz.com) which means the old URL will automatically forward hits to the new one on the microsoftnow.com domain.

Today, two months later, Google still hasn’t finished crawling my blog on its new domain! Here’s a simple test: Search for “ribbon interface” on Google with the “site:microsoftnow.com” parameter and you get no direct link to the original post on this blog. Search the same term on Google with the old domain in the parameter (i.e. “site:shijaz.com”) and you get positive results.

Repeating the same test with Bing,  “ribbon interface” on Bing – with “site:microsoftnow.com” gives positive results with the new domain. I guess Bing crawled my site faster than Google .

I want to give reliable and up-to-date search results on my blog for my visitors, and hence I chose Bing.

Inspired by an article in the Telegraph, I decided to give Google another chance:

Yes, I understand that these suggestions are generated based on indexed content, but what the hell, let’s poke some fun.

1. I c…

Great, can you do that with no helmet too?

2. I like to d…

I’d say you are!

3. I like to g….

Watch out!

4. This one’s a favorite. My po…

A colorful suggestion indeed!

5. My ur…

6. Can you goo..

Uh – I think I’m already doing that?!

7. It doesn’t have good things to say about you – or your dog!

8. Yahoo is…

Yes, it might.

9. They still don’t like us.

Synchronizing folders?!? Of all bad things…

10. I haven….

You’re absolutely right – I’d rather bing.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post!

Microsoft today unveiled Bing, a new Decision Engine. Bing takes users beyond ordinary search – in helping them make faster, more informed decisions.

The world doesn’t need another search engine – what it needs is a decision engine!

Bing is specifically designed to build on the benefits of today’s search engines but begins to move beyond this experience with a new approach to user experience and intuitive tools to help customers make better decisions, focusing initially on four key vertical areas:

• making a purchase decision,
• planning a trip,
• researching a health condition, or
• finding a local business.

Bing goes one step beyond a search engine – it’s a decision engine – meant to help users make decisions based on search.

For more info on Bing, read the press release. Bing will available for the public at www.bing.com from June 3. Check out the video below:

Bing – A better way to search