Articles about Bing

To quote my main homeboy Charlie Brown, "Good grief!" -- 2015 has been a very difficult year. While no year has ever been perfect, this one has felt particularly long and taxing. Sure, there were positives, such as Caitlyn Jenner's courageous gender change, and the royal birth of baby Charlotte. But sadly, there were also horrific moments, such as the terrorist attacks in Paris, the Germanwings 9525 crash, and the heart-breaking EU refugee crisis.

While the importance of each moment varies in importance from person to person, overall, we have a shared societal experience that makes all of these things impact our lives. Whether you like it or not, the Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy break-up -- as silly as it may be -- has changed the world. A great way to see what is on the minds of people is to analyze search data. Today, Microsoft shares the top Bing searches of 2015. And yes, Kim Kardashian is once again making the list.

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Holy cow, it is Thanksgiving week! Somehow the holidays just crept up on me this year. For retailers, this is of huge importance, as Black Friday is almost here. While I will probably do some shopping that day, I will avoid the craziness of Best Buy, Walmart and Target and focus on non-tech Christmas shopping at stores like Kohls.

So how will I save money on tech gifts then? Uhh, the Internet. Yes, I will look for deals online while preserving my sanity and avoiding long lines. According to Microsoft, leveraging Edge, Bing, and Cortana can help you save. Will you try?

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Microsoft’s search engine Bing comes baked into Windows 10 in several ways. It’s the default search choice in Edge and Cortana, and you can even use its image of the day as the wallpaper for your lock screen via the Windows Spotlight feature.

As well as displaying a new image on a regular basis, Windows Spotlight lets you "like" photos which appeal to you. The more pictures you like, the better idea Windows will have of the sort of imagery you want to see, and it will customize the content accordingly.

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Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. While it is more appropriate for children, I enjoy watching scary movies on TV and eating candy. The candy I buy to give out just happens to be the ones I like -- such a coincidence!

Believe it or not, Halloween is just around the corner. Look, I know you are busy -- many Americans are working harder than ever nowadays. Are you behind on your holiday planning? Don't worry, Microsoft is here to help. You see, both Cortana and Bing -- two wonderful services -- are here to assist you.

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You would think that, as Windows 10's adoption takes off, Bing's market share would follow suit. The search engine is an integral part of the new operating system, being used, for instance, in Cortana and the new default browser, Microsoft Edge. Yet, since Windows 10's debut on July 29, Bing is no more popular than before.

According to a new report by comScore, Bing's US market share has seen only a modest increase on a sequential basis, rising to 20.6 percent in August 2015 from 20.4 percent the month before. The volume of queries increased by just one percent in that time-frame.

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September is officially here. For students, this means the end of summer vacation. Luckily, the month is not all doom and gloom, as it also means American Football! Yes, fans of the NFL will finally have games to watch on Sundays.

For many people -- myself included -- this also means fantasy football is here. If you aren't familiar, this is a highly-competitive game where you select NFL players and have their performance ranked against an opponent's players. Whoever has the most points each week between the two people wins -- real money can be involved too. Today, Microsoft announces that Bing can help you win in fantasy football as well as provide other helpful NFL information. Will you leverage Bing to win?

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Always-connected mobile devices make it easier than ever to plug into the news and keep abreast of what is going on in the world. But reading on the move means that it is very easy to fall into the habit of skim-reading articles, or just reading part of a story which can mean failing to grasp the wider context of the news.

To try to help with this problem, Microsoft today announces a new feature for the mobile version of Bing News. Smart labels have been added to stories to give readers an at-a-glance way to see how a particular story relates to other stories and topics. It helps to, as Microsoft puts it, "connect the dots between news stories so you get the bigger picture".

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Microsoft is pushing Bing heavily in Windows 10. Bing is the default search engine in Microsoft Edge, and while you can change this to Google (or any other choice), the process of doing so is far from intuitive -- you can’t simply pick "Google" from a list of options.

Cortana, Microsoft’s built-in personal assistant, is powered by Bing too, which means when you ask her a question she doesn’t immediately know the answer to, she’ll open up your default browser and display a list of results sourced from Microsoft’s search engine. There is a way to get her to use Google instead though, but you won’t find this in any Settings.

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Many people regret upgrading to Windows 10, and many are put off from making the move to the latest version of Microsoft's operating system, because of concerns about privacy. The answer to privacy worries about Windows 10 features such as Cortana has been 'just don't use them', but it seems that this might not be enough.

Research carried out by Ars Technica shows that even with features disabled and privacy settings activated, Windows 10 continues to send information back to Microsoft. The data is sent by a series of tools including OneDrive, Cortana, and Bing -- even when a local account is used.

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We are just about midway through August, meaning the school year is approaching. For many students, this spells the end to sleeping in, vegetating in front of the TV watching Maury, and staying out late with friends.

As you and your parents' anxiety builds in anticipation, you are all probably doing internet searches related to it. Well, Bing has been data-mining its search queries to find the top 5 most searched for Back-to-School topics, which you can read below. Number 5 is particularly shocking, don't you agree?

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Healthcare and prescription costs have been going through the roof in recent years, while people still struggle with a bad economy. To make matters worse, older people are living longer (a good thing), while many younger people are in worse health than ever before (a terrible thing). Obesity, diabetes, heart disease -- huge problems.

With all of these struggles, people turn to the internet for medical advice and discount drugs -- scary. True, not all online pharmacies are bad; quite the contrary, but some of them sell expired, dangerous, and counterfeit drugs, which can have tragic results. Luckily, Bing is now protecting its users from this scourge. Whether you are buying Viagra, insulin or heart pills, Microsoft's search engine will have your back.

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Bing is the second largest search engine in the US and in order to maintain its position the team behind it needs to make constant improvements and for that they need insights into how it gets used.

Microsoft has chosen behavioral analytics solution Interana to analyze the massive volumes of clickstream event data generated daily on Bing.

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The Windows 10 Search box next to the Start button lets you search through Windows and the web. Type in a query, and the results will appear in your default browser. The first time you do this you’ll see it’s Bing producing the results.

If you don’t mind that, then great. Move along, there’s nothing to see here. But if you’re not a fan of Microsoft’s search engine, you can easily disable this feature. There is one downside however, and that’s you’ll also lose Cortana as well as Bing. If you don’t mind that, here’s what you need to do.

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As shown by the Window Insider program and the development of Windows 10, Microsoft is now all ears. Under Satya Nadella, this is now a company that wants to listen to, and be guided by, its customers. Google may dominate the search arena, but Microsoft is keen for Bing to eat into its market share by giving people what they want.

This is precisely why the Bing Listens program was created, giving people an opportunity to make suggestions about changes and additions they'd like to see made. Today Microsoft not only thanks people for providing feedback, but also reveals some of the suggestions it has acted on. Have your idea been used?

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Revenge porn has become quite a problem online, and Microsoft has now made it easier than ever to report cases. Today the company says that it will happily remove links to revenge porn photos and videos from Bing search results, and has set up a dedicated form to make it easier to get in touch.

Like Google's Right to Be Forgotten, there is little that can be done to remove the offending content from the internet, but Microsoft's action should make it easier to prevent the spread of damaging content. The removal process goes further than just obfuscating links in research results as the company does what it can to help stem the flow of privacy-violating photos and videos.

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