Bing is here! As of today, everyone can begin to Bing. Many have already been using Bing since the June 1st preview, and the feedback has been rolling in. So we wanted to join in the conversation with some details on some of the more visible Powerset features that are now available in Bing.
The Powerset division has contributed to Bing in both subtle and more conspicuous ways. While the subtle contributions are important, they are much harder to showcase. This post will focus on how the features that our users have come to love on Powerset.com have evolved and have been integrated into Bing.
There now is a Wikipedia “Reference” vertical that can be accessed through Bing. Certain queries like “squirrel monkey” for example will trigger a reference answer. Click the “Reference” Quick Tab in the left hand rail (aka the Explore Pane) and you will land on the best Wikipedia page for that query. (Other suggested queries that trigger the Reference vertical include Facebook, Sikhism, Albert Einstein, Brassica Tournefortii, Paul Celan, Craiglist, Ferrari Enzo, Coldwell Banker, Tanita Tikaram.)
In the Reference vertical you’ll have a very similar experience searching Wikipedia as with Powerset.com, all without leaving Bing, and with the rest of the Web one click away.
Use the Article Outline on the right to quickly scan the article. Click on a header to go to the corresponding part of the page. Click "pin" to keep the outline stationary, and "top" to navigate to the top of the page.
Easily switch between images from Wikipedia and images from the Web using the Images tab.
Also, searching within the Reference vertical will bring back semantically highlighted results from the Wikipedia Reference collection.
For natural language queries related to Arts & Business, Bing will show a high-precision answer at the top of the page. From the Bing home page, try Impressionist artwork, Picasso art, and Guernica painter, for business try: ebay founder, Microsoft slogan, when was Apple founded, where was ebay founded. These results can also be used to access the Bing Reference vertical.
We are extremely proud of Bing, and proud of the contributions we’ve made. It was our goal at Powerset to change the landscape of search, and now as part of Microsoft, we believe we're doing great work toward this goal. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on our plans to further incorporate cool semantic technology into the Decision Engine. As always we’d love to hear your thoughts on the Powerset integration with Bing in the comments.
Dr. Scott Prevost, General Manager, Powerset division of Bing
Senior Program Manager Mark Johnson and Powerset founder Lorenzo Thione discuss Bing.
Great article, very informative. Thanks and greetings!
The integration of Wikipedia will surely be helpful, because I don't believe I'm alone when thinking that the first search result most users click on is usually Wikipedia!
@websiteguy, many of us dont go directly to Wikipedia directly though we know we get details from there but we genereally do search in search engine like Bing first and then go else.
Anyway great article with cool images.
