Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Tuesday evening, everyone. The afternoon started off with something of a bang with Facebook’s big event, during which the company revealed the service’s new Graph Search and explained the difference between the new feature and traditional web search. It also announced that it was partnering with Bing for search results in Graph Search, while we used the latest installment of SlashGear 101 to give you all of the details about this new feature.

We heard from one Jefferies analyst that Apple might begin preliminary production on the iPhone 5S in March, while specs for the rumored Sony Xperia Tablet Z leaked out (we’re told to expect a full HD display, among other things). A ChangeWave study tells us that iPhone demand is down though the device still dominates the charts, and Acura revealed its 2015 NSX concept car at NAIAS 2013 today. We got an up close look at the rumored BlackBerry Z10 handset in a new video, and we learned that there might be Java-based iterations of the Red October cyberespionage attacks, which would explain why the Department of Homeland Security has been so insistent in its recommendation to stop using the software.

Tesla announced today that it will open 25 new stores this year, while 2K Games and Irrational delivered the PC requirements for the incoming BioShock Infinite. A US District Court has dismissed the case against Aaron Swartz after his tragic death, and it would appear that Samsung has a new phone called the Galaxy Pocket Plus on the way. Disney Infinity was announced today, and it’s looking to take a bite out of Skylanders’ massive audience, while United has become the first international US-based airline to offer WiFi on its flights.

AT&T is offering Nexus 7 owners a $100 credit on their bill if they sign up for a data plan with it, and NASA is telling us that Curiosity may have found its first potential rock sample target on the surface of Mars. 10 more games have moved through Steam Greenlight, Call of Duty Online has kicked off alpha testing in China, and finally tonight, Simple has brought its online banking app to Android. That does it for tonight’s Evening Wrap-Up, we hope you enjoy the rest of your night folks!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: January 15, 2013 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Facebook just introduced its newest feature, Graph Search, where you’re provided with specific, catered searches of friends on Facebook and their respective interests and likes. However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg just pulled a “one more thing” trick on us and announced that Facebook is partnering up with Bing to bring web search results to Graph Search.

Zuckerberg already described the difference between Facebook’s Graph Search and traditional web search, noting that the two are completely different as far as what kind of results appear, but to cover all bases, Facebook is partnering up with Microsoft’s Bing, which will provide web search results for search queries that aren’t in Graph Search.

Essentially, the Bing partnership will allow Facebook to slightly jump into the web search realm without fully committing itself. So, for queries about the local weather, users will get relevant results in Graph Search thanks to Bing. Zuckerberg says he doesn’t see Facebook as an exclusive web search tool for users, but the company wants to “provide good search results in Graph Search.”

The beta version of Graph Search is rolling out today, and it’ll start slow. Then, as more info is indexed, the feature will roll out more widely and quickly. As of right now, there’s no word on how slowly or quickly the beta will roll out — execs say that it all depends how well the beta program is going. For now, there don’t seem to be any plans for an API, but Zuckerberg didn’t completely rule it out.

Facebook partners up with Bing to provide search results in Graph Search is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

On December 11, Microsoft rolled out an update to its Bing Social Results sidebar, which displays shared content from friends based on their social networking activity. Now, three days later, the company has announced another update to Social Results: support for iPad. Now iPad users who search with Bing will get to see the same friends’ activity on the right side of the search engine as desktop users.

The Social Results sidebar pulls information from the user’s friends’ Facebook statuses, tweets, Fourquare activity, Klout, and more. For example, searching for a specific restaurant will pull up activity from friends who shared content about that restaurant. The content could be a link to an article, a status about the restaurant’s quality, or a Fourquare checking, for example.

The update is specifically for Safari for iPad/iPad mini, and is designed to display whether the device is in landscape or portrait mode. Users who want to benefit from the service need to sign in to their Facebook profile by clicking “Sign In” on Bing and authorizing the connection. If you’re not seeing the social results sidebar right now, be patient; Microsoft says the update is rolling out over the course of a few days.

This comes after the announcement yesterday that Bing Desktop had been updated to version 1.1, bringing with it support for more languages, and all versions of Windows starting with XP. Using Bing Desktop, users can set their wallpaper to the latest Bing desktop image, which will change daily. The search bar allows users to pull up and view summaries of the latest top headlines, video, images, and more.

[via Bing]

Bing Social Results now available on Safari for iPad is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Search engine users who prefer Microsoft’s Bing services instead of Google’s… well, Google service who didn’t need to decide as a result of a blind-search test or through being scared of being “Scroogled“ this holiday season have a new feature to look forward to. If you’re the kind of person who performs searches on famous people or places through Bing, Microsoft has expanded its snapshot experience to support those two topics.

Searching for a famous person or place will now deliver not only search results of either the famous person or place, but will also present relevant facts in the center part of the screen. Microsoft used Pablo Picasso as an example, to which we can view additional facts about him such as when he lived, his height, children, spouse and parents. Oh, yea – you can also view his artwork.

Bing’s biggest competitor, Google, has already been delivering this kind of service to its users for some time now, but we’re still glad to see Microsoft offering it to Bing users as it’ll make researching a famous person or place much easier.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Twitter Rolls Out New Profile Updates To All Users On December 12 , Gmail, Chrome Experience Service Disruption For Nearly An Hour,

Microsoft is calling out its search competitor Google, particularly Google Shopping, formerly called Google Product Search. The Redmond-based technology titan has just launched Scroogled – what seems to be a portmanteau of Google and screwed. Microsoft calls it a campaign for “honest search to help shoppers this holiday season.” It’s also a campaign to warn online shoppers that Google is now supporting paid ads on its shopping results. (more…)

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