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Dec. 17, 2009

As many had expected for a number of weeks now, Microsoft just launched a new iPhone app for its Bing search engine. The app was actually supposed to be ready at the end of November, some sources say.

Bing, which is also available for Windows handsets and BlackBerry smartphones, features voice-activated search, as well as maps, directions, news, stock and commodity quotes as well as movie listings.

Bing is available from the Apple App Store for free. Bing has been a bright spot for Microsoft, taking almost a ten percent of the search market share in October, according to ComScore.

But Google still takes the major portion of the market with almost a 66 percent of all searches.

But still, month-over-month figures show Bing continues to gain traction nevertheless.

While all of this is happening, mobile users can now search the world around them by scanning a 2-D barcode.

Google recently announced that it will be sending 2-D barcode window decals to about 100,000 of the most searched for local businesses across the country, as part of a new initiative called “Google Places.”

Microsoft’s search engine joins a growing number of SEs for the iPhone.

Beyond just Google, mobile search has evolved into a rather sophisticated technology, and one that is also getting more and more popular as each day goes by.

So-called "higher reality" search engines such as Layar and Yelp also allow users to search via an additional layer of data that is superimposed over the real world via their mobile’s camera.

Speaking of camera's, we are told that Google is still active in some parts of the world with its 'Google Car'. The Google Car is a vehicle equipped with a 360 degree camera and tripod mounted on its roof and that drives through all the various streets and side streets in major metropolitan cities everywhere in the world.

At the end of the day, the driver of the Google Car uploads all the many photos the camera has taken during its trip to Google's servers, where the photos will then be available on Google Maps and other related search functions on the Google family of products.

Nevertheless, over the past year, the Google Car has hightened some privacy-related issues with some citizens. There are even some whole counties (in the U.K. namely) where the Google Car has been forbidden to trespass by a court injunction.

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Source: Microsoft.