Indexing & Search Engine: Bing for iPad Uses Tablet Screen for Big Visuals, Features

Even as Microsoft wrestles with how to approach the burgeoning tablet market with a product of its own—and perhaps blunt Apple's iPad momentum—the company has released a free Bing for iPad application that takes advantage of a tablet's extra screen real estate to offer a variety of colorful features. Bing for iPad includes voice search, and offers suggestions based on recent searches and searches done by other people. The application's custom screen includes a home screen loaded with information on local weather, top news, maps and stock market data—in addition to a new "Trends" feature that drills into the hot topics of the moment. All of it can be accessed with a few finger swipes. Compared with the Bing for Mobile application already available for smartphones, it immediately becomes clear how a tablet's larger screen allows something like Bing to really stretch its legs. But tablets and smartphones aren't the only ways that Microsoft is trying to expand its search engine's presence. In its bid to make Bing a viable competitor to Google, Microsoft has inked a number of partnerships with other tech giants. In addition to its agreement with Yahoo to power the Web-portal company's backend search, Microsoft is deepening its relationship with Facebook for U.S. users, even extending the social network's Liked Results to any URLs retrieved by Bing's algorithmic search.