Bing: Microsoft may have got it right this time

A few days ago Microsoft released its new, long-awaited search engine, Bing. It touts video previews, easy business listings, and much,much more. It has a nice, dead simple interface and a nice color palette. Right on the start page non"internet savvy" people will feel right at home, the sidebar on the right directs with large type to Shopping, Travel, News, Images, Videos, and Web search.

One of the nice features is all the ways you can narrow down the image search. You can choose the size, the style of photo, and who is in the photo. There are also options to change how the thumbnails are shown, from only one at a time to many on screen at once. While it can't give you witty humor like Wolfram Alpha can, it sure has some snazzy features.

If you search something in Bing it will give you many options to expand on it, from searching downloads to repairs and games for the Wii or any other product.

When you search for videos it plays a preview of it when you roll over the video, with sound too. If you click on the video it will show a larger preview with the results still under it, along with a link to view the video at its site of origin.

Bing also give phone numbers for businesses when you search for them and search suggestions inside of the results, and probably more that I'm not putting here.

The search results, overall, are comparable to any other engine. It seems like a solid, all purpose search engine that really wants you to use it. I think Microsoft hit it right with this one, bit, it is not the Google-killer we are waiting for, and, it may never come.

Wolfram Alpha Impressions

A few weeks ago I wrote about the new search engine called Wolfram Alpha. It is made by the Wolfram company, that makes mathematics and science software such as Mathematica. So, obviously, this is one nerdy search engine. Yesterday they let beta testers check it out (I...um...forgot to...sign up) and it ran a tad rocky. Today, though, its released to the whole world. And it is cool, not amazingly useful, but still pretty cool.

But, on using it for myself, I now know it will definitely not be the Google killer. It does have a vast amount of information on very advanced topics. But, it is far to complicated for normal users, for people who do not understand how to even email it will be completely useless. But, Wolfram Alpha is not made for those people, it is made for tech savvy teachers, scientists, and geeks(like me!). It can tell you advanced equations, facts about universities, information on historical figures, and much much more.

The interface is incredibly easy to use, surprising on such an advanced search engine. The website runs fast, even under incredible loads of traffic. It also has nice, easy to read type. But, the real reason you want to use it so you can say you didn't use Wikipedia on school projects. I give it an A- (pun intended).

Wolfram Alpha Search Engine may be a Google-Killer

Wolfram Alpha is a search engine that is releasing this month (May 2009 for those of you who are still running Windows NT or Mac OS9). But whys is it a big deal? Well, this search engine like the super-genius child of Google OneBox and Wikipedia. Unlike the strangely named Ask.com, this will actually answer your questions, like Wiki Answers except with instant gratification. It will also ooze with data-y goodness for all the techies out there. You can visit it at wolframalpha.com (its not up and running yet though). The video below this (its a tad blurry) shows how Wolfram Alpha works. But, will it actually be the Google-Killer?