A Plea for Bing: Use It
September 14, 2019
Microsoft wants more people to use Bing and Microsoft wants them to use it now! Microsoft is desperate for more Bing users that they their trademarked search engine into the new Windows 10 update. Read the story at Win Buzzer, “Microsoft Builds Bing Search into Windows 10 20H1 Lock Screen.”
The Bing implementation is touted as a new search featured imbedded in the Windows lock screen, The feature was released with the new Windows 10 20H1 Preview Build 18932, but it remains hidden and can only be accessed with a tool. One tool is the Mach2. The integration of Bing into the lock screen is good design. The idea is giving users the option to conduct an Internet search without having to unlock their entire PC. It is for those, “Oh yeah, I need to look that up” moments. It is not stated where results will appear. If they are on the lock screen, it is a genius move, but if the results are only available by unlocking the PC it is stupid.
Since Microsoft placed Bing on the Start menu, it gets as much as 50% of its traffic through that direct link as the official Bing Web site. This is funny:
“At the moment, we just can’t see how the Bing feature on the lock screen would be useful. Of course, Microsoft may have some wider lock screen plans that we don’t know about yet.Whether this is Microsoft making a play to compete further with Google is unclear, but it probably won’t work. Bing is the default search tool on Windows PCs, but users continue to actively choose Google Search over it. Adding Bing to the lock screen will likely not change that. However, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft handles this new feature in the coming months.”
Apparently the author Luke Jones never has to figure out the name of that actor in that one movie or the name of that place where he ate lunch three weeks ago next to the good bakery. Ah, Luke Jones may want to consult a librarian.
Whitney Grace, MLS, September 14, 2019
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One Response to “A Plea for Bing: Use It”
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Personally, I almost never use a PC for data search. It is the phone. Currently, when I pick up the phone, icons appear that when a finger is placed over it, the data contained appears for as long as I hold the digit on the icon. That is helpful for viewing a message for an example.
In my case, the PC is only used for accounting purposes. I avoid the distraction of the internet when ever I need to input data. The democratisation of every possible human interaction is so annoying. If a human is awake, there is a market to be exploited. Grab his attention, intice the human to spend his fiat money, that’s good for the economy.