Entries tagged with bing - Channel 10

Bing Gets Games

Sarah Perez — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:52:00 GMT

As promised, the Bing “entertainment experience” is getting into gear with updates for music, tv, movies, and now more games, too. According to this post on the Bing blog, those searching for free games on Bing have several new options, including Belle's Beauty Boutique, Carniball,Fishdom Spooky Splash, Jigsaw, 8 Ball Champion, Pyramid Solitaire and Gardenscapes.

But don’t worry if you’re not sure what game to search for by name – I discovered that you can simply type in “games” into Bing and the top result will link you directly to the Games themselves (click either the link’s heading or just “Play Now.”) Here you’ll find all the games housed on Bing, like the ever-popular Bejeweled, for example, and Plants vs. Zombies, just to name a couple.

The bing.com/games site also groups games into categories like “most popular,” “action favorites,” “puzzle favorites,” “word favorites,” and more, so you can find just the sort of game you’re looking for, even if you don’t know what it’s called.

Facebook Uses Bing for "Facebook Stories"

Sarah Perez — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:49:00 GMT

Facebook launched a new application called Facebook Stories in celebration of the site reaching the 500 million user mark. These so-called “Facebook Stories” are user-submitted creations that detail how Facebook has brought people together, whether long-lost friends, family or even old flames finding new love. The stories have been plotted out on a map to provide locational context, and the map Facebook used comes from Bing.

Here, blue dots on the map show the location of these stories which can also be identified by theme (like “love,” “family,” reunions,” etc.)

It’s not too late to submit your story for inclusion, either. Facebook is still asking for submissions – details can be found via the Facebook blog here.

To view the map, head over to this page on Facebook: stories.facebook.com

Bing Webmaster Tools Updated, Now with Silverlight 4

Sarah Perez — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:49:00 GMT

The Bing team has just released an updated version of the Bing Webmaster Tools, which has been overhauled based on feedback from webmaster and SEO communities. The Tools now include new features like “Index Explorer,” which lets you browse through the Bing index to verify which of your directories and pages have been included and “Submit URLs,” which lets you, not surprisingly, submit specific URLs to Bing for inclusion in the index.

Other features let you examine issues the Bing bot encounters while crawling your site, a “Block URLs” feature and, perhaps best of all, the addition of Microsoft Silverlight 4 support. With the new Silverlight integration, the Tools can take advantage of Silverlight’s “rich charting functionality,” according to the Bing team blog post. That will help you analyze up to “six months of crawling, indexing, and traffic data.”

Those who already have Bing Webmaster Center accounts have been automatically upgraded to the new tools. New users can sign up here.

Choose Bing to Help Schools

Sarah Perez — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:15:00 GMT

In a new partnership with charitable organization DonorsChoose.org, Bing will give you a $3 donation code just for switching your default search provider to Bing. As many have suggested, web search is more a function of habit these days than a conscious thought about picking this engine or that one. By creating an incentive to make Bing the default, the team hopes that using Bing will simply become your new habit.

And you can’t argue that the incentive isn’t a good one – although $3 may not be a lot on its own, as more and more people click to donate, the numbers add up fast. The money is used to help fund a classroom project of your choice, whether that’s new school supplies for individual students or something for a class as a whole. Some projects already being funded include ones to help students acquire musical instruments, graphing calculators, literacy and reference materials, and even a field trip to the seaside.

All you have to do to get involved is go here and then click the orange button reading “Choose Bing and Donate.”

Tweet de France - a Map of Tour de France Twitter Updates

Sarah Perez — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:37:00 GMT

We already told you about the excellent Tour de France map app, courtesy of Bing, which highlights the race’s course, start and stops, feed zones, hill climbs and more in both standard road views, aerial views and even Bird’s Eye view.

Now there comes another Tour de France map, this one showing both the Tour de France course and tour updates via geo-tagged tweets. The new map, hosted here on Livestrong.com (scroll down), highlights Twitter updates by way of blue-colored pushpins which, when clicked, reveal the tweet’s text.

As the race continues, fans will be able to read these geo-tagged tweets, containing reactions and content from spectators, journalists and even some of the Tour de France competitors themselves, like Lance Armstrong of Team Radioshack, whose Twitter account is followed by 2.5 million fans.

The map interface uses the Bing Twitter Map App’s “embed” function for this custom creation dubbed “Tour Talk.” You can check it out here along with lots of other Tour de France news.

(via the Bing team blog)

WWT and Bing Maps Get New Mars Imagery

Sarah Perez — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:04:00 GMT

The Microsoft Research team behind the WorldWide Telescope project (WWT) have just announced the addition of new imagery from Mars, courtesy of NASA. Now, WWT users can explore what is, to date, the most complete and high-resolution imagery available and view new, interactive tours of the planet with NASA scientists Carol Stoker and James Garvin. Dr. Stoker was a scientist on the Phoenix Mission team, which she discusses. That mission involved landing a rover near the north pole of Mars to look for conditions that might be conducive to life. Dr. Garvin’s tour goes through the history of Mars to establish why it’s so interesting to us, and whether a human mission to the planet is possible.

In order to view the new content in WWT, viewers will need to download the new WWT|Mars experience.

However, using WWT isn’t the only way to access the imagery. Thanks to Bing Maps’ application gallery, the Bing WorldWide Telescope Map App has been updated to include the Mars additions. Web surfers can immediately view the content using their browser via the Silverlight site.

To use this feature, click the “Maps Apps” button then the “WorldWide Telescope” map app. When it loads, choose “Mars” from the list of collections.

Geeky Ways to Search Bing

Sarah Perez — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 08:04:00 GMT

The Bing Developer Center blog recently revealed details regarding the use of the Bing Advanced Query Language. To the uninitiated, this is the geeky way to search the web via Bing, by using command operators. You’re probably already familiar with some of these - the more commonly used commands like AND, OR, NOT and site:, but the online guide offers a more complete listing. You can now discover the meaning behind the odder options like literalmeta: or norelax:, and then tailor your searches with cutting edge precision.

Of course, you don’t need a geek guide to search Bing – in fact, the whole point of Bing is getting you to your answers fast, no matter what query you enter. But for “advanced” geeks, like the folks over on Research Buzz, for example, the query syntax guide is downright exciting. (Heck, they even posted “SQUEEEE!” when sharing the news.)

If there’s nothing you like more than a good collection of query syntax data too, then you can check out the complete guide in either HTML format, PDF or CHM.

Tour de France in a Bing Map App

Sarah Perez — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:07:00 GMT

The Tour de France, which starts Saturday July 3rd and runs through Sunday July 25th, is now being featured in a new Bing Maps application, the Bing 2010 Tour de France map app. Here, fans of the race can preview the course of the race in a standard road view, an aerial view or even the awesome Bird’s Eye view. (To switch views, click the globe icon at the bottom of the screen).

Along the course, pushpins indicate the start and finish points and waypoints like feed zones and hill climbs are also indicated. At the top of the map is an interactive chart that displays the various elevation and slope changes for the selected stage. You can also see weather predictions via the “Stages” tab on the left and daily results from the “Results” tab.

The map, notes a post on the Bing Maps blog, is much better than the PDF that’s featured on the Tour de France’s official homepage. I’d have to agree with that, for sure.

If you’re still more interested in World Cup madness, though, don’t forget about the Bing World Cup map app and the Bing Home Turf Finder map app, two other great map apps the team recently launched.

It's the Bingbot Now!

Sarah Perez — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:49:00 GMT

Starting October 1st, the Microsoft-owned web crawler (the user agent that helps index websites) is getting a new name: Bingbot. Previously known as the msnbot, the name change reflects the new Microsoft brand for search, Bing.

The Live Search team tells us that robots.txt files written for msnbot won’t be affected, so you don’t need to edit them if you’re a website owner. However, if you create new directives for the Bingbot and don’t remove the older msnbot directives, the Bingbot directives will take precedence. To demonstrate this point, the team showed this example which allows Bing to crawl all whole hosts except on the folder /folder1/:

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /folder1/

User-agent: msnbot
isallow: /folder1/
Disallow: /folder2/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

If you have questions about the new bot, you can reach out to the team at latest Bing refresh (are we at one a day now?), the team has added new features to the Bing Shopping section. One of the updates is a left-side navigation improvement which adds more filters for narrowing down your choices, based on the item you’re searching. In the example on the Bing blog post here, it only took a few clicks to narrow down 38,000+ laptops to 3. Now, that’s handy.

There’s also new information on product descriptions and product reviews and ratings, notes the post, and product summary pages have been updated too, to include more product images (straight from the merchant’s site), free shipping information and detailed ratings and reviews.

The latter comes from ResellerRatings.com, a site which includes more than 430,000 consumer reviews of online retailers like Newegg, TigerDirect, DiamondShark, Buy.com, and B&H.

Bing Gets into Entertainment with Music, TV, Movies and Games

Sarah Perez — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

Bing’s latest update expands the search service from being a simple “decision engine” to being a Web destination in and of itself. With the new upgrade, rolling out now, Bing has added an entertainment vertical featuring music, TV shows, movies and games. You can land on Bing’s new entertainment offering via a traditional search or you can browse through them at www.bing.com/entertainment.

In the music section, you can find lyrics, photos, videos and tour dates for your favorite artist or band, but even more notable, you can stream music. By integrating Zune into Bing, there’s access to over 5 million songs available for your listening pleasure. And if you want to buy a track, Bing points you to Zune, iTunes and Amazon.com’s MP3 store.

A second integration from Microsoft Games provides access to detailed information on over 35,000 games including reviews, cheats, walkthroughs and more. Plus, almost 100 casual games are available to play right from within Bing. Just search for a game and then click the “Play Now” button that appears under the listing.

Finally, there’s video. Bing now offers thousands of episodes from 1500+ shows, thanks to new partnerships with Hulu, Viacom and CBS. This “Bing TV” section will serve as a one-stop-shop for online TV viewing, offering everything from clips to full episodes and even local listings.

Movies aren’t left out either: reviews from critics, Facebook and Twitter sentiment, and other info from Bing Maps that helps you navigate to your favorite theater are included here.

Everything except the TV listings should be live now – those will come over the next couple of weeks. Zune music playback is also ramping up now – more songs will be available in a few days.

Bing for iPhone Updated with Social Elements, Barcode Scanning

Sarah Perez — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:33:00 GMT

The Bing Team just announced that the Bing application for the iPhone and iPod Touch has now been updated with several new features, including new social elements, barcode scanning technology, and a better movies section.

From the home page, you’ll notice a “Social” option. You can use this feature to connect both your Twitter and Facebook accounts to the Bing app. After doing so, when you search for something using Bing, you’ll also see relevant results returned from your social network. For example, if you search for a movie, after the movie showtimes, the app will show what your friends on these networks have said about the movie itself.

Another new feature is visual scanning. Using the phone’s camera, you can scan the barcode of any product or the cover art of books, CDs, DVDs, or video games. This returns reviews, prices, and links to merchant websites, allowing you to perform comparison shopping right from your device.

Finally, the Movies section has been updated with more video and trailers and improved access to showtimes. The Shopping section has seen a few tweaks too, helping you find products, prices and links faster than before.

To get the new application, download it from iTunes now or just update the Bing app already on your phone.

World Cup Tweets via Bing Maps

Sarah Perez — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 15:04:00 GMT

Nifty! I just discovered a new mashup courtesy of Steve Clayton which brings you a Bing Maps interface overlaid with tweets from the World Cup. From Microsoft’s FUSE Labs – yep, the same folks behind all the fun projects as of late, including Docs.com, Emporia, Bing Twitter, Twitter Maps, Kodu and Spindex – there now comes GoalMap2010.

There’s nothing too complex about this mashup, it’s just tweets on a map, similar to the popular Twitter “mapplication” for Bing Maps. However, in this case, you can see the tweets for the current World Cup game unfold in real-time on top of a map of the game’s location. Plus, you can see tweets from the two countries playing, on top of their respective homelands. You can even see tweets from your own neighborhood, in order to tap into what those around you are saying.

All of these options exist as four separate, embeddable maps that you can place on your own website or blog.

Goooooaaaaaalll, indeed!

Bing Facebook Page Launches Fan Flair App

Sarah Perez — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:34:00 GMT

On Bing’s Facebook page, there’s a new application for World Cup fans called “Fan Flair.” With this app, you can decorate one of your own Facebook photos with “flair” that shows your support for your national team. Decorations include a flag, a ball with your flag’s colors and a scarf.

You can pick from any Facebook photo already on your profile or you can upload a new photo. Then you choose your team and decorate the photo with the items of your choosing. The finished photo can be posted to your Wall or saved to your Facebook Photos.

You can also get access to your team’s news and news for other countries (on Bing, of course). For example, here’s Team USA’s page. You can replace the text in the search box to see your country’s page in the same format.

Facebook "My Friends" Bing Map App

Sarah Perez — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:17:00 GMT

Bing’s latest map app is a Facebook friend explorer application called “My Friends.” Once loaded, you can view all your Facebook friends plotted out on the Bing Maps interface, where, instead of pushpins, small icons featuring their Facebook profile photo are used.

To try this application, you have to first sign in via Facebook Connect then “allow” the app access to your Facebook profile info. It then retrieves all of your friends who list a “Current City” in their profile.

For a bit of added fun, you can also write on your Facebook friends’ wall directly from the Bing Maps application itself.

Bing Launches Social Search

Sarah Perez — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:58:00 GMT

In October, Bing received access to the Twitter “firehose” and launched a specialized Twitter search site at bing.com/twitter. Now, a new search portal is launching, Bing Social Search, available at bing.com/social, and it will feature both Twitter posts and publicly available Facebook posts too.

Described as the “first search experience integrating the full Facebook firehose,” the new search engine will retrieve both fan page updates and links plus links from individual Facebook users whose updates are set to “Everyone.”

However, unlike other standalone Facebook search engines, user names and photos from Facebook users will not be displayed, and neither will the text included the status update. In fact, the only thing that will be retrieved is the link itself, in aggregate. It’s a nice way to retrieve the data from Facebook, without violating user privacy.

The Bing homepage is also being tweaked now too to show the “trending topics” based on both the Twitter and Facebook data. When you click on a topic, you’re shown info about why it’s trending, results from social search and then query refiners.

These changes will roll out starting today, June 9th.

Bing and Foursquare Team Up for World Cup

Sarah Perez — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:57:00 GMT

Bing is going to release a World Cup badge on the location-based mobile “check in” service Foursquare which can only be unlocked by those who follow the Bing account on the service, reports TechCrunch. To earn the badge, Foursquare users have to check into local hotspots like bars, restaurants and other venues in select U.S. cities including New York, Atlanta, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Seattle.

According to the Foursquare page for Bing:

“Bing maps and Foursquare have teamed up with Thrillist to create the Bing Home Turf Finder so you can find the best places in your city to watch your team dominate in South Africa. Don't forget to give a shout out to your favorite soccer team and let your friends know exactly where your loyalty lives.”

To find the appropriate venues where you can watch the World Cup in action, you can use the new HomeTurfFinder Bing Map app, which will launch around the same time.

In addition the shot at earning the special badge, any Foursquare user following Bing will receive special discounts when checking into those same venues.

Bing's Best 3 is Here

Sarah Perez — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:13:00 GMT

Happy Birthday Bing! The web search service is one year old as of June 2nd and instead of getting presents, they’re giving us one: a brand-new theme pack filled with the best photos from the homepage. Like the two prior “Bing’s Best” themes (available here), this updated wallpaper pack is designed especially for Windows 7 computers as it utilizes the OS’s new “themes” feature that automatically switches through your wallpaper backgrounds for you on an interval you specify while also allowing for custom sound schemes, screensavers and window border colors.

In the newest Bing theme pack, “Bing’s Best 3,” there are 19 new wallpapers that include things like an underwater sinkhole, a baby sea turtle, and the Dry Tortugas (Hey - I’ve been there!)

You can grab the new theme pack from here.

Bing Search Library for PHP

Sarah Perez — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 14:25:00 GMT

Developers take note, the Bing Search Library for PHP has arrived and with it, you now have a simple way to submit queries and retrieve results from the Bing Engine via the Bing API. The results you fetch back can then be used in your own PHP application.

To get started, all you need is the code (open sourced under the BSD license), an API key, and the API Docs (you’ll need an MSDN login to access them).

Then, you can follow along with this tutorial written by PHP guru Cal Evans where you can access sample code, too while learning more about Bing’s API. Stay tuned for follow up posts, as well, where he will talk about what possibilities this API access permits.

This is pretty interesting stuff because it’s entirely unique – no other search engine gives you access to information like this via an API. Now go build something amazing with it!

Bing's Wallpaper Search Feature

Sarah Perez — Thu, 13 May 2010 17:40:00 GMT

Amit Agarwal recently posted a handy tip to his blog about one of Bing’s perhaps lesser-known features: wallpaper search. When you search for a keyword or phrase using Bing’s image search portal, the options on the left side of the page let you further narrow down your choices by image size: small, medium and large, for example. But beneath those options is another: “Wallpaper.”

Click this and Bing will automatically (automagically?) filter the search results to display just those that exactly match your computer screen’s resolution. You can then find an image you like and set it as your desktop background. Nice!

Agarwal also says this will work on mobile too, but you’ll have to switch over to the desktop website for Bing in order to use the feature. For more detailed instructions, check out his post here. Or to just try it out now, go to bing.com/images and filter by “size.”

Bing App Gets Turn-by-Turn Directions and More

Sarah Perez — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:25:00 GMT

The Bing app for Windows phones has just been updated with new features, the most exciting of which is an improved navigation feature that now offers turn-by-turn directions. For owners of Windows 6.x phones, the Bing Maps component of the app can now guide you to your destination, complete with voice prompts, just like a real GPS-enabled navigation device could do. The Bing team had help from the Microsoft Tellme group, who helped develop the voice in the app itself so it was clear and lifelike (and it is!).

To get directions using the mobile app, you select the new “Navigate” button. It can also help you find the fastest route, shortest route, the route that avoids traffic or tolls and more, just like Bing Maps on the desktop. (There’s a video of the app in action here).

The second new feature in the Bing mobile app is actually not really a feature, but a redesign of the app’s homepage itself. Now the most common searches, like Movies and Traffic for example, are buttons at the bottom of the page where they can be easily accessed.

To get the new Bing app for your phone, go to m.bing.com from your phone’s web browser. To see if your phone is supported, go here and check the list at the bottom of the page.

New Bing Screensaver

Sarah Perez — Tue, 11 May 2010 13:55:00 GMT

These days, we no longer need screensavers to prevent “burn in” of images on our computer’s screens – those types of problems are, truly, a relic of another era, thank goodness (for LCD anyway).

That said, there’s no reason why you can’t use a screensaver just to brighten up your idle PC with a little beauty, art, or other images that just make you smile. (I enjoy a montage of my new baby’s pictures, for example).

If you also enjoy screensavers, there’s a lovely new one appearing here on Microsoft’s “DiscoverBing.co.uk” website. The Bing screensaver includes a number of the most popular images from the Bing.com homepage – the same images you’ll find in the popular themepacks Bing’s Best and Bing's Best 2.

The Bing screensaver works on any computer running Windows XP SP 2 and up that has 512 MB RAM, a 500 MHZ processor and 50 MB of free hard drive space. You can download it for free here (.exe file).

New Bing Slide Show to Save on Summer Vacation

Sarah Perez — Tue, 04 May 2010 13:20:00 GMT

There’s a new Bing slide show that focuses on the Bing Team’s favorite way to save money while planning for and taking vacations this summer. Included in the show are tips on cruises (very economical, with everything included on many lines), avoiding excess baggage fees on airplanes, and cheap ways to travel (use public transport!).

There are a few tips on cheap destinations to visit, too, including, surprisingly, Orlando, Florida. As someone who lives nearby, I’m not sure that I’d call a trip to Disney and the other parks “cheap” by any means (ticket prices alone hit the bank account hard), but the slideshow notes that hotel rates are down nearly 10% from a year ago. So it has gotten “cheaper” to stay there than in years past. If you have the money to travel, now is a good time, it seems.

Since the Harry Potter park is opening June 18th, you can be sure that I’ll be visiting soon, regardless of price.

Facebook Community Pages Feature Bing Maps

Sarah Perez — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:33:00 GMT

Facebook’s new “Community Pages” are places where Facebook users can share common interests and experiences. These will function sort of like Wikipedia pages within the social network. Initially, they’ll actually source some of their material from Wikipedia. But later, as Community Page members contribute to these micro-sites, there will be even more information featured on each page, transforming them into rich resources of data around that topic.

Some sample topics already available now include Cooking, Cycling, and Hiking, for example. There are several others, too. In face, Facebook has 6.5 million pages available right now.

If the page features a geographic area, the Community Page will include a map of that location using the Bing Maps Platform. The map is fully navigable as it would be on the web, including the ability to pan and zoom.

Florida Census on Bing Maps

Sarah Perez — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:52:00 GMT

I particularly like this latest Bing Maps platform integration because it comes from my home state of Florida. The state has used Bing Maps to display the information being gathered by the national census going on now. The link, available here: http://www.myfloridacensus.gov/FloridaHouseCensusValidator.aspx, shows a Silverlight Bing Maps application where you can see the various counties, districts, census tracts and blocks as well as where the census has been received and missed.

For more information on how to use the Map, head over to the instructions page here.

(via Bing Team blog)