Microsoft Makes Bing Faster
March 16, 2015
Bing is classified as a generic search engine living in Google’s as well as DuckDuckGo’s shadows. In an attempt to make Bing a more viable product, ExtremeTech tells us that “Microsoft To Accelerate Bing Search With Neural Network.” When Bing scours the Internet, it pulls results from a Web index that is half the size of Google’s. Microsoft wants to increase Bing’s efficiency and speed, so they created the Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology.
Microsoft breaks Bing’s search into three parts: machine learning scoring, feature extraction, and free-form expressions. Bing still uses Xeon processors for its document selection service and it needs to switch over to new FPGA software to increase its search speed. Microsoft called the team developing the new FPGA technology Project Catapult. Project Catapult uses similar tech designed in 2011, but it relies on half the servers as it did in the past.
Microsoft is relying on convolution neural network accelerators (CNNs) for the project:
“Convolutional neural networks (CNNS) are composed of small assemblies of artificial neurons, where each focuses on a just small part of an image — their receptive field. CNNs have already bested humans in classifying objects in challenges like the ImageNet 1000. Classifying documents for ranking is a similar problem, which is now one among many Microsoft hopes to address with CNNs.”
Armed with the new FPGA, Microsoft hopes to increase Bing’s search and rank business to compete at a greater level with Google. While that may increase Bing’s chances of returning better results, remember that Microsoft still creates OS’s that still fail on initial public releases.
Whitney Grace, March 16, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Twitter Relies on Bing’s Translation Engine to Offer Tweet Translations
February 4, 2015
The article on Search Engine Journal titled Twitter Teams Up With Bing To Offer Translated Tweets expands on the announcement by Twitter that they will be bringing back the translation of tweets. The project was abandoned in 2013, but has returned with the assistance of Bing’s translation engine. While the service is not without flaws, the article suggests that it beats no translation ability at all.
“The company admits that the service is far from perfect and still needs to be worked on: “… the results still vary and often fall below the accuracy and fluency of translations provided by a professional translator.”
While the service no doubt leaves something to be desired, it’s still an improvement over the zero built-in options they had before. Bing’s translation engine works with more than 40 language pairs, and is currently available on Twitter.com, Twitter for iOS and Android, and TweetDeck.”
If you are interested in setting up the translator you need to change your account settings to “Show Tweet translations.” Once this has been established, clicking on the globe icon will show a translation of the original text. Since the company already allows for the fact that this is not a professional translator, we can only wonder how any translation service will handle the fluidity of abbreviations and slang on Twitter.
Chelsea Kerwin, February 04, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
The Fleeting Image Search
October 16, 2014
Image search is touted as being intuitive and accurate. Users simply need to submit an image to the search engine and based off the picture analyzing algorithms similar images will be returned. It, however, is still in the works. Image search still proves to be a difficult task for search engines to master. Search Engine Watch brings us the news “Bing Unveils Responsive Design For Image Search” that the search engine is ramping up to improve its image search.
The newest improvements optimizes image search for touch screen mobile devices. Bing has changed the way uses can browse through images, making it simpler to explore and refine results. Pinterest board searches have been added and a mini-header that will slide with users as they scroll down will offer quick access to popular results. The image hover feature has also been updated.
Along with the updates, Bing has these tips to improve image search:
• “Quality: No matter what the user is searching for, Bing is focused on providing high-quality and relevant image search results.
• Suggestions: Users that are scrolling page after page are clearly having a difficult time finding what they are looking for. Bing maintains a set of search suggestions and collections to help users find what they need.
• Actions: There are many different ways to search and endless topics to search about. Bing has provided the tools necessary to filer results, create an image match, and create one-click access to Pinterest.”
These upgrades will improve image search, but it still has a long way to go.
Whitney Grace, October 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bing Can Now Converse
September 15, 2014
Microsoft’s Bing is spinning, I mean, sporting a nifty new feature; The Next Web reveals, “Microsoft Updates Bing’s Conversational Understanding to Let You Ask Follow-up Questions, Just Like Cortana.” “Conversational understanding”, huh? I suppose that’s one way to put it. Cortana, you may know, is the Windows Phone’s effort to surpass the iPhone’s Siri.
As you might expect, this “follow up question” feature follows a chain of questions, letting users rely on pronouns instead of being forced to repeat keywords. For example, as the article illustrates, after receiving the proper answer to “who is the president of the United States?” a user can type “who is his wife?” and receive the answer, “Michelle Obama.” One could go on like that all afternoon: “How tall is she?” the First Lady stands 5 feet, 11 inches tall. “Who is her brother?” It’s Craig Robinson. And so on. Writer Emil Protalinski notes:
“This is a feature that is borrowed directly from Cortana. This shouldn’t surprise anyone given that Cortana is largely powered by Bing, so it makes sense that Microsoft would want to pull the other way as well. Since Cortana now handles search on Windows Phone, this feature won’t need to come to Bing for Windows Phone, but Microsoft may want to offer it on Android and iOS.
“Google Search on mobile has similar conversational abilities, which were arguably popularized with demos and commercials showing off the Moto X, when you are asking questions via voice. It’s worth noting, however, that Google Search itself does not offer the same functionality on the Web nor on mobile while typing.”
Protalinski observes that Microsoft makes a habit of outstripping Google to market. This time, it is doubtful this one feature will swing many Android users Windows’ way. Still, Microsoft says more advances are around the corner. We’ll stay tuned.
Cynthia Murrell, September 15, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bing Says It Will Make Searches Easier?
September 9, 2014
Tech snobs are reevaluating their opinions of Bing. Why? Because Apple has made it the default search engine for its products. Bing, however, is trying to improve its search quality and Search Engine Watch says “Bing Makes Technical Searches Easier.” Bing has streamlined its technical searches, which means if you are searching for technical jargon or more specifically: API and codes, non-alphanumeric characters, software information, and answers about Microsoft products, things are about to get easier.
Bing’s goal is to make technical search be more accurate, similar to recent endeavors to make search respond to natural speech. The article says that developers trying to find code hidden in documents and consumers will benefit the most from the new search.
“Bing also says it has determined the top factors among consumers looking for software include cost, reviews, and safety, as well as official or verified sites from which to download the software and similar products that might be better than the product included in the original search. As a result, Bing says it has developed an experience in which the entity pane provides a quick description of the product, along with clearly displayed information about cost, official and trusted download locations, and reviews.”
Then if you are searching for answers about Microsoft products, instant answers, a new feature, will appear at the top of results. Not a bad idea, considering that troubleshooting a Microsoft machine is harder than using Adobe Photoshop in Chinese.
When it comes to technical searches, usually you have to spend hours surfing through outdated forums that might resolve your problem and searching for the one piece of code. It’s needed and much appreciated. Good for you, Bing!
Whitney Grace, September 09, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Looking Ahead for Bing Entity Engine
April 28, 2014
We know the Web search engines have been working to reduce the number of clicks between us and our desired information and/or action points. For Google, the mechanism behind this is called Knowledge Graph. For Bing, it’s the Entity Engine. Now, TechCrunch reports that “Microsoft Has Big Plans for Bing’s Entity Engine.”
Bing has always emphasized hooking users up with results that let them take action, like reserving a table or booking a flight. This increasingly means working with third-party sites. Reporter Frederic Lardinois interviewed Derrick Connell, head of the Bing Experience group. Lardinois writes:
“Connell argues that the only way to do this efficiently is to create an open ecosystem that powers these actions. ‘We think a lot about how we can create value for everybody who is participating in this new emerging space,” he said. “And how can we bring the best set of players to the table for our users?’
“Today, this means having partnerships with Yelp, OpenTable, TripAdvisor and others, and Microsoft then highlights the actions they make possible on its search engine. In the long run, though, Connell envisions an open ecosystem where any site can make actions available using a standard markup language (he mentioned schema.org as an option in our conversation). Then, when a user looks for an entity, Bing could map this to an entity provider and shorten the path users take between searching for something and putting this knowledge into action. Ideally, this could even mean taking the action right on Bing (maybe even with a single click), but Connell acknowledged that issues around identity and login management will probably mean users will have to take most actions on a third-party site.”
Unsurprisingly, Connell argues that Microsoft may be one of the only companies capable of building such a project. For now, as more third-party sites become involved, the problem is how to decide which gets the traffic from any particular search. Lardinois makes an interesting observation: the prevalence of the Microsoft Office suite means we could see the day when Bing lets us search the Web from within Word or Excel. Near-monopoly does have its advantages.
Cynthia Murrell, April 28, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Bing Basics, Search Tips to Search Better
April 16, 2014
The article titled Master Bing and the Internet with This Guide to Search Engine Operators on Windows Phone Central focuses on “advanced operator references” to refine Bing search. Anyone who had to write a research essay in a freshman composition class may have had a similar lesson from their friendly librarian, and this article covers the basics admirably. It begins with how to use “and” to request several search terms. The article continues,
“Sometimes when you are searching the web, you want a quick and easy way to find images of a certain size; sure, you could always use the image size buttons within Bing Image search, but buttons are for “noobs”! Use the “ImageSize:” operator to quickly return images of certain dimensions. Valid search values are “small”, “medium”, and “large”. Example: “puppies imagesize:medium” – By typing this query into Bing, you will only receive image results of puppies that are categorized in the medium image size category.”
Other operator references are “contains” (for specific file types), “define” (for searching for a definition of the term), “ext” (also for specific file types, but even more limited), “feed” (for RSS feeds only), “filetype” (if you are bored with “ext”) and “language” (to request search results in a single language). Read the full article for more shortcuts and tips to master Bing search.
Chelsea Kerwin, April 16, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Microsoft Committed to Bing
January 14, 2014
ZDNet takes us inside a recent investor call with Microsoft’s CFO Dave O’Hara about his company’s online services strategy in, “Microsoft: Bing is Not a Bottomless Money Pit (Any More).” For about six years, the company has poured money into building the infrastructure behind Bing‘s datacenter. Now the foundation has been laid, and Microsoft is poised to start seeing its investment pay off.
Reporter Mary Jo Foley explains:
“In keeping with Microsoft management’s claims that Bing isn’t an asset it would make sense to sell at this point, O’Hara stressed that Bing is no longer ‘just’ a Web search engine and that Microsoft has integrated it into an increasing number of its products, such as Windows and Xbox. He said Bing also has given Microsoft a leg up in creating ‘one of the best data sets in the industry,’ which Microsoft will leverage increasingly in future products and services.
Though O’Hara didn’t cite any of these products specifically, a couple of examples of areas where Microsoft’s big-data prowess will come into play are offerings like its cloud-based business intelligence service bundle, Power BI, and the coming ‘Cortana’ personal assistant technology expected to debut first in Windows Phone 8.1 next year.”
Foley is wary of drawing any conclusion about Bing’s profitability, now or in the future, because changes in the way Microsoft reports revenue obscure the value of any particular online product. She notes that, as a whole, the online services division lost $321 million on revenues of $872 million in the most recent quarter. Still, she seems to accept O’Hara’s point: After all that investment, now is the time to go forward with Bing rather than heed calls to sell it off. We shall see whether the strategy pays off down the road.
Cynthia Murrell, January 14, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
A Look at Bing vs Google
November 13, 2013
Over at Search Engine Watch, Mark Jackson reminds us that Google was not always top dog in the search field. His article, “Could Bing Ever Overtake Google in Search?” emphasizes that competition is a good thing. While this is true, could the SEO CEO have any other reasons to hope for the search giant’s wane? Vicious pandas and penguins, perhaps? After all, Jackson opens with an admission that he is angry at Google for ceasing to push keyword data into the public realm (where search engine gamers, er, optimizers can get to it) while continuing to supply that data to paid advertisers. The nerve!
Jackson does make some interesting points. He cites a recent Pubcon keynote address given by Google’s own Matt Cutts, which discusses some major developments for the leading search engine. Knowledge Graph, of course, will continue to play a role, as will voice search and “conversational” search. Jackson picks up on Cutt’s last item, “deep learning.”
He writes:
“Google is focused on deep learning and understanding what users want so searchers don’t have to use simple keyword phrases to search Google. Bing, on the other hand, has partnerships with every major social site and receives data directly from those sources. So, rather than trying to understand what users mean and predicting it, Bing actually knows what user want based on actual data from social sites.”
The piece goes on to emphasize the importance of mobile devices to the future of search, an area where he suspects Bing may really take over. Apparently, Bing’s more “personalized,” social-media-informed approach will especially make the difference in mobile, somehow. He also speculates that users may not take kindly to Google’s changes, particularly Knowledge Graph. He ventures:
“In my opinion, this is a make it or break it type of move by Google. Google users will either continue to like their search or they will end up using search less and less to find what they’re looking for. Bing users may be more likely to actually like their search results because the results are biased towards their own social media activities and friends’ activities online.”
I’d like to think more people are looking for objective information than for material that confirms their existing biases, but I suppose that is naïve. See the article for more on Jackson’s reasoning and hopes for a Bingy future. Is he right, or will Google maintain its search dominance for years to come?
Cynthia Murrell, November 13, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Take the Coke and Pepsi Wars and Insert Search
October 20, 2013
Basic economics tells us that brand rivalry prevents a complete monopoly on a free-based market. The quintessential examples are Pepsi and Coke, but let us make the metaphor more modern with a comparison between Bing and Google. EWeek takes a look at Bing’s new claim that its search is more popular than Google in “Is The Bing It On Challenge A Little Off?” The “Bing It On Challenge” supposedly compared Google and Bing search result side-by-side and stripped of their branding. It showed that users preferred Bing 2:1. Yale professor Ian Ayres found these results questionable, because he found the results to be mostly identical.
When Microsoft was asked to share their data sets, they refused to release their results. Ayres got even more peeved when he found out how they collected their information and decided to run his own test:
“Admitting to being “slightly annoyed” in discovering that the claim was based on a study of a mere 1,000 participants, he said that he enlisted Yale law students to run an experiment using a similar sample size and the BingItOn.com Website. We found that, to the contrary of Microsoft’s claim, 53 percent of subjects preferred Google and 41 percent Bing (6 percent of results were ‘ties’),” reported Ayres. Secondary tests, which involved randomly assigned participants and a mix of popular, Bing-suggested and self-suggested search terms, failed to come close to Bing’s 2:1 advantage.”
Then the claim comes in that the results were not shared because they are not tracked and that results in the challenge were slanted in Bing’s favor. Microsoft burned itself on those two. Basic scientific method research would toss this test in the kindling pile immediately. No results or favoritism at all? One fact about marketing is that advertisements cannot make claims without proof. Oh boy! We are back on the Coke and Pepsi blind-fold taste test. Which search results belong to which search engine?
Whitney Grace, October 20, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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