Hasta La Gadget!

Between Google and Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Google has always reigned supreme as the most popular choice, and it’s a good thing too, since a recent study found that Bing returned around five times more malware in search results than Google, meaning that Bing highlighted websites that contained malicious code of some kind.

German independent testing lab AV-Test conducted an 18-month study, and gathered up 40 million website provided by seven different search engines. 10 million websites came from Google and Bing each, with 13 million coming from Russian search engine Yandex, and the rest coming from Blekko, Faroo, Teoma, and Baidu.

Surprisingly, though, out of the 40 million sites, AV-Test only found 5,000 websites that were riddled with malware. Yandex had the most percentage of malware websites in its search results, while Bing returned 1,285 malicious results out of its 10 million websites. However, Google only returned a mere 272 malicious results — a lot less than Bing.

Of course, the chances of coming across a malware-infested website in either Google or Bing is slim to none, so whether or not you use Bing or Google, it’s always important to remember to know what you’re clicking on and make sure it’s not a website that’s infested with malicious code. Web browsers will usually warn you if you come across such a website, but it’s always good to have a little common sense anyway.

[via PC Mag]

Microsoft’s Bing shows five times more malware than Google is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Google had long occupied the top of the search engine hierarchy for some years already, when Microsoft decided to spruce up their search efforts by launching the Bing website four years back, and one thing that certainly made Bing stand out from Google’s site would be its front page that featured beautiful as well as different photographs every single day, and there are also moments when the front page uploads an HTML5-based animation to keep users interested and happy.

The thing is, what is the criteria for Microsoft’s team to select the right image for a particular day? The official Bing blog spilled the beans, as Microsoft’s Matt Wallaert stated, “While it may not increase your life satisfaction by helping you get something done, a quick look at Twitter and Facebook will tell you that it is a source of momentary delight for millions of people every day. The editorial team behind choosing the image carefully considers user happiness in every selection they make, working to maximize the surprise and delight we can get by simply taking a moment to explore our world visually.”

Guess the home page image was chosen to keep you happy, but I think that accurate search results would make you even happier.

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A video has been posted over at MSFT Kitchen showing off what is said to be a prototype of the Bing app for Windows Phone, which was demonstrated at an employee-only Microsoft event. The event is said to have taken place earlier this month, and to have been used to show off “future technologies.” The prototype Bing app features multiple improvements over the current app.

The video shows two Windows Phones side-by-side, with one running the current Bing app and one running the alleged prototype app. You can see its improvements in real time, with one of the most obvious ones being the reduction in latency when the user makes voice requests. Obviously, this hasn’t been confirmed by Microsoft.

In addition to the latency improvements, there is also a decrease in the rate of word errors, and voice requests that are made in a noisy situation, such as a room where other devices are producing noise, are handled better than with the current app. You can check all this out yourself in the video below.

Near the end of the video, you’ll hear someone said to be Eric Rudder of the Chief Technical Strategy Office. According to Rudder, the prototype app offers a 12-percent to 15-percent increase in word error accuracy, but goes on to say that there is another potential 10-percent to 15-percent that hasn’t been implemented. There’s no word on when these improvements will make their way to the public.

[via MSFT Kitchen]

Bing prototype app video leak shows improved voice functionality is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A couple of weeks back Microsoft organised a special event just for its employees. Various upcoming technologies were demonstrated at this event. A video demo of the Bing prototype app for Windows Phone 8 was leaked and it reveals the powerful speech recognition feature that future devices may have. Speech recognition has been there by default on the Windows Phone platform from its early days, though the video reveals that Microsoft has polished this feature quite a lot.

The Bing prototype app has a better word error rate reduction that its predecessors. Latency for speech requests has also been greatly reduced. The app handles speech requests in noisy situations considerably better. Another 10-15% percent reduction in word error rate is also on the cards. Then there’s the new streaming mode, which will allow users to search as they speak. The leaked video doesn’t reveal when this Bing prototype app will actually be finalized so that it can be rolled out to users. All of this may just be one internal research project. Will we see all of these features in the Windows Phone Blue update or will we have to wait until Windows Phone 9 drops? Only time will tell.

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Microsoft rolled out its Bing Desktop app back in 2012, allowing users to easily get the backgrounds visible on Bing.com to use as desktop wallpapers, along with a desktop search box and a couple other features. Now the company has rolled out a new update, which brings with it a handful of new features, including integrated Facebook content.

The latest version of Bing Desktop allows users to connect to their Facebook account via the application. Once connected, the desktop app will populate with content from the user’s Facebook feed. Viewing options includes friends’ statuses, page posts, and comments. This is offered as a simple way to check out what’s going on without firing up your browser.

Another new feature is the ability to customize how Bing Desktop integrates into your computer’s desktop, with three new options being added. The first option is a minimize-to-Windows Taskbar option, which is self-explanatory. The second lets the user create a keyboard shortcut to pull up the search box without using the mouse. And the third option is for minimizing to the system tray.

Last but not least are the personalization features, which have been improved for greater control. Users can now easily set whether Bing Desktop will run as a start-up process, as well as configuring their search history and choosing the Bing.com image that will be applied as the desktop background. You can grab the update from Bing.com; it’s available in nine countries, including the US, UK, and Canada.

[via Bing]

Microsoft rolls out Bing Desktop update, offers integrated Facebook feature is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.