• Michael
• On August 6, 2013

On Saturday we wrote about the forthcoming new design of Bing on Windows Phone 8, presenting some of the features coming. But now, the new look and features are officially detailed by Microsoft on the Windows Phone Blog.

We already mentioned the redesign of Web Search where the Media pivot has been separated to Images and Video. The new details reveal that the Local pivot fuses within Web Search results. The purpose is to make the search more streamlined and smarter, showing the most relevant information on the first page. This helps the user to avoid the additional tapping and swiping in order to reach the information he is looking for. The search results are also improved and made richer. For example, if you look for “Delta Airlines”, Bing now will show “links to Flight Status, SkyMiles, Track Flight, Flight Schedules” as well.

Other new detail revealed is that the Images and Video sections are getting an infinite scrolling. The images are redesigned as the thumbnails are made bigger and auto-sized.

An interesting new feature is the change in data usage. The old Bing loads all of the pivots with content by default each time when you search. Now, it will download results only for the default Web view, as “Images and Videos are populated on demand if you swipe over to them”. Thus, Bing becomes faster.

Other new features are Instant Answers and Snapshot. When it comes to the former, we already wrote about the direct definition of the word searched in the Web section. The new thing here is that Instant Answers comprise information about traffic, exchange rates, flight status, translations and more. Snapshot provides an information at-a-glance about people, places and items without a need to go on a website. The new update has started rolling out to the consumers in the U.S., but in the next few weeks it will be available for the rest of the world.

Source: Windows Phone Blog