Here is a new weekly section that we will be posting every Sunday at around Midnight GMT. If you were to busy to keep up on the latest happenings in tech this week, then we will keep you all up to date in one post.
Fujitsu Flexbook Teases With a Bendy Screen Future – Tested.com
How many times did we wondered about “Thelma & Louise” ending? Thinking: “What if these girls could use a smartphone and Bing?”… None? Ok, me neither. But apparently Microsoft does.
If we think about one of the most dramatic endings in a movie, “Thelma & Louise” finale should be in the top 5. But fortunately Bing created a new ending, and while they were at it, they mentioned Google’s “inefficient” way to find places.
Take a look to this publicity from Microsoft’s Bing:
After I saw the car flying in the air, I thought this is a terrible way to use a movie reference; but after seeing the car didn’t get smashed I think the publicity is not horrible, just lame
If you’ve not heard of Bing, then you’re not following Microsoft. Bing has come into the search market with a bang offering users a unique way of surfing the internet. Recent rumors shared on the AppleInsider website state that Apple might be interested in offering another option other than Google when searching on their iPhone OS.
Currently the iPhone OS defaults to Google when you open Safari. Apparently Apple seeks to offer other alternatives to searching, perhaps looking to take away dependency on Google. According to the article, Apple is not dropping Google entirely, they seem to only want to make other options more visible. Also stated in the article, “Apple already provides an option to use Yahoo for web search in Safari, although that option is not obvious and requires visiting system settings to make the switch.”
Have Apple and Microsoft struck an alliance? It would appear so initially, but because Apple is already offering Yahoo, perhaps they will make Yahoo another prominent option. There’s a very long standing history in how the companies involved have been mixed into all this. Microsoft has been asking for Bing to be more prominent, Apple has integrated some of Microsoft’s mapping technology into their services, and Apple is not entirely happy with the dependency of some of their core apps on Google’s presence. It’s a long and drawn out history that the article does a great job detailing.
Personally I’m not a fan of Bing, I don’t see it becoming a huge factor on the OS as a search option, but we’d love to hear your thoughts. Are you happy just using Google on Safari when you go online, or do options like Yahoo and Bing make a better offering?
You are probably thinking that since the religion that prevails in most of the countries in Middle East is Islamic (and some variations), it could sound normal that Microsoft was obligated to remove sexual and explicit content; but the restriction also applies for other countries like India, Turkey, Thailand, China, Malaysia and Singapore.
There’s always going to be a lot of discussion regarding to sexual content available on the internet, restricting content over the web, religions involved, etc. etc. But someone actually starts thinking if any of these measures actually solves anything? Banning these words would prevent from any kid to access some of unrated material?
Since its launch, the default search engine on the Safari browser on the iPhone has been Google. The two companies had a somewhat ‘snug’ relationship with Google CEO Eric Schmidt even being a director at Apple until he left in 2009 because of “a conflict of interest”.
Since then, competition has flared up. Apple are buying up competitors of Google to stop Google taking over the market. Also, the iPhone will very soon be pitted against the Google phone when it is released this year. So Microsoft has become Apple’s new best friend – well, Bing at least. I don’t think they’ll ever get along in the OS wars.
This latest rumour comes from Business Week who have been keeping a close eye on the development between Apple and Google.They say, “Microsoft is now a pawn in that battle”. So it looks like iPhone users will be unwittingly siding with the not-so-popular Bing for their mobile web usage!
Everyone knows that each of the major search engine has little quirks that state its individuality. For Google, it the special event logo (or doodle as it’s known) which changes on big events such as the 4th of July or Christmas. Bing however, has different photographs for backgrounds which change every now and again.
I found this cool application called Bing4Free which will download the new photograph when it goes live and put it as your desktop wallpaper. The Images are quite small unfortunately, 958×512 to be exact, but you can always select to stretch them across your screen with slightly reduced quality.
Other options include setting how often you want it to update the images (if you don’t want it do do it whenever a new image goes live) and how many images you want to queue up at any one time.
This is quite a cool program for anyone who like to change up their desktop, whether they use Bing or not.
Search has become a hot topic for the past year. Bing, Google, Yahoo, and others have fought for dominance and in this battle, users have been introduced to a bevy of innovations in their searches. The concept of search is nice, type in a few words, or phrases and find content directly related to your query. Some searches are more successful than others all the while introducing users to content across hundreds of thousands of pages. Still, most users will not go past the first two or three pages at most.
SurfCanyon strives to change the user’s search experience and focus not just on getting content, but becoming a tool for discovery. Much like a tool we spoke about some time ago, Worio, SurfCanyon attaches itself to your browser of choice and adds a target tab that allows for further discover of related content right from your normal search. The reason behind such an app is the fact that sometimes your content is not where you expect it. I with users not typically going past page 3, SurfCanyon will pull related content together for you and place it right under all the links you see on the first page.
You don’t just get deeper results, but as seen below you can dig even deeper into your results. This provides a real drill down experience for search discovery. This immersive search experience might be something you’ve been longing for. There’s lots of results to search through and the concept is to provide you answers for even the most complicated of queries.
When Bing and Yahoo! decided recently that they would work together in an effort to stage an offensive against the internet giant that is Google, I though competition between the two had come to an untimely end. I was wrong.
As it happens, although the two search engines will work together to defeat Google they will still compete for glory. Perhaps we will see a kind of WW2 cooperation just like the bitter Allies united to defeat the Nazis…not that Google is a Nazi.
A senior vice president of Yahoo! said “We are Yahoo and that will continue…We collaborate on the back-end but we are competitors on the front-end,”
I guess this makes sense. I mean, what were we all expecting? Yahoo! and Bing to come together like two lost lovers? Nonsense. This is a recession and both companies will by going full steam ahead to stay afloat. They will share advertising revenue with both search engines using the Bing ad model. The deal is due to come into affect next year and will last for ten years. By the end of that time will Google have been defeated? And will Yahoo! be left needing Bing more than Bing needs Yahoo?
Last week, here at Crenk we reported that Microsoft and Yahoo! are entering into a deal to combine search technology and the revenue from their engines in a bid to strike Google who has a share of around 65% of the global market. Yahoo! and Microsoft barely have 28% – combined.
It has emerged that the companies’ lack of market holding has led to Yahoo! putting a clause in the agreement which states that Yahoo! can back out of the deal at any time before the scheduled five year renewal if their revenue share falls too low.
Yahoo! and Microsoft failed to specify what exactly the number was that would entitle Yahoo! to pull out should revenue fall below it however it is expected that the danger zone will be in the first eighteen months.
This is because any new service, whether continuing on from an old one or starting from scratch will experience growing pains. A few other details have emerged since the deal was officially filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
For example, Microsoft must hire 400 Yahoo! engineers and pay them “market-competitive” wages. Furthermore, a full deal must be struck by October 27th otherwise the debates will be brought to a arbitration panel. Time is money.
I guess now we all have to play the waiting game. I wonder in two years time will be caught saying “I Binged myself and I’m 5th in the search results!”.
A whopping 67% of us ‘Google’ things. If we want to know something we simply ’Google it’, as it has become known. Like any good online company, their name is also a verb. Just like Twitter with Tweet. They have a hug share of the market – undoubtedly. Now however, they may have their first real competitor in years.
Anyone remember last year when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo! for almost 50 Billion dollars? It went down in flames. But the inter-company relationship didn’t end. Now, they’re discussing a possible collaboration between the two search engines –Bing (Microsoft) and Yahoo!.
If this were to go ahead then it would offer a chunk of healthy competition to the dominant Google. The news storyalone would send thousands flocking, to give it a whirl – but Yahoo and Microsoft better be careful.
People like their search engine. For me, its been Yahoo! imply because I like a bit of news before I search and also because it was the first search engine I ever used so I just kind of stuck with it. People don’t like change – and when they do change they don’t want to be insulted by too many sponsored results like over at Ask.com or search results that make them want to ‘Google’ .
It’s impossible to tell what the end result would be from this mutation of search engines. Would it be Yahoo!, powered by Bing or the other way around? They do have a plan to split the revenue between them but what about the work load such as PR, development and staffing the site. Now might not be a good time to invest in any search engine as there’s going to be a war, with casualties. I’ll wait until the final few blows before I put my money on one of them.
When Bing and Yahoo! 
Last week, here at Crenk we reported that
