Friday, May 29, 2009

On the horizon: BING

Bing is, in many ways, Microsoft's response to Google search, and it will replace Microsoft's LiveSearch. However, it is promoting itself not as a "search engine" but as a "decision maker." I.e., it intends to process information to help you make a decision about such things as (and here is where the initial focus appears to be) shopping, health, travel, and local businesses. If you click on the logo above, you can see the brief video promo, and you'll note how it tries to incorporate reviews with the shopping or local search experience or use 'expert' sites for health info or provide 'farecasts' with travel planning. (The travel part looks to be a combination of Expedia and Farecast, both of which are Microsoft related sites.)
I recently mentioned Wolfram|Alpha which bills itself as a "computational knowledge engine," but its value for biblical studies is rather limited, and I'm guessing that bing won't be of any particular extra benefit in this field either unless you find its presentation of results more appealing.
More info here and here.

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