News

• Bing will tap Facebook, Twitter in answering queries

  Microsoft is introducing a phone-a-friend feature into its Bing search engine, allowing searchers to ask their Facebook and Twitter contacts to supplement information gathered by the search engine itself.

• Friday Grok: Two modes of search — Google and Facebook

  Search is so central to First World Problems these days that any time Google makes a significant change, the news wires start to hum, fish start to fall from the sky and statues start bleeding from the eyeballs.

• Bing and Yahoo sponsored results lead to hard-to-remove rootkit

  Searching for Flash Player on Bing and Yahoo can lead to rogue pages distributing a hard-to-remove rootkit, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor GFI Software.

• IBM: After 30 years, PC going the way of the vacuum tube and typewriter

  Thirty years ago, IBM created the first personal computer running Microsoft's MS-DOS. Today, IBM and Microsoft seem to have very different views on the future of the PC.

• User satisfaction study: Facebook vulnerable to Google+

  User satisfaction with Facebook is low enough that the social networking site risks losing significant market share to Google+, according to a new study.

• Microsoft's frenemies: The necessity of partnering up

  How do you solve a problem like Apple and Google?

• Microsoft adds Facebook 'likes' to Bing search results

  Microsoft on Wednesday showed how Facebook friends will be able to influence Bing users' search results, as part of a wide-ranging update on search that also included developments for its image, maps and mobile services.

• Microsoft's Q4 Earnings: Seven Facts Likely to Be Spun

  Microsoft will announce its fiscal 2010 earnings Thursday afternoon, and the pressure is on Redmond to deliver big numbers now that PCs sales have jumped this year, Windows 7 is the "fastest selling OS ever" and Office 2010 is generally available.

• Microsoft Bing grabs search share from Google

  After struggling for a few months, Microsoft's Bing search engine showed growth in the U.S. in June.

• Bing client for Android due within weeks

  Microsoft will release its first full-featured Bing search client for Android in the next six weeks, matching the search capabilities that Microsoft offers for the iPhone, company executives said Tuesday.

• Microsoft to boost Bing's music, TV, movies, game search

  Microsoft will unveil new features next week to enhance the Bing search engine's capabilities to search for entertainment-related content, specifically in areas such as music, television, movies and online games.

• Google's new Bing-like look disappears

  Only hours after launching vibrant background imagery on its homepage, Google stripped the page back to its usual stark white.

• Microsoft brings Facebook into social search

  Microsoft is launching a new social search page that displays results from Facebook and Twitter, an executive announced on Wednesday at Search Marketing Expo in Seattle.

• Deal with Apple 'easy,' Microsoft executive says

  Microsoft may be the biggest software company in the world, but like everyone else who does a deal with Apple, it too was sworn to secrecy.

• Search marketers consider optimizing for Bing

  Once Google cornered the bulk of the search market, many search marketers stopped optimizing their sites for other engines, but that could change when the Bing-Yahoo integration happens, experts speaking at Search Marketing Expo said.