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Two New Search Engines - Bing and Google Squared

There has been a lot of buzz the last several days about two new search engines - Bing, from Microsoft, and Google Squared.

Bing
Here's a good description of Bing from SearchEngineWatch

More than just a rebranding of Live Search, Microsoft is repositioning Bing as a "decision engine," with a goal "to provide customers with intelligent search tools to help them simplify tasks and make more informed decisions," according to a Microsoft spokesperson.

Bing's "decision engine" will begin by focusing on four key vertical areas: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition or finding a local business.

If you'd like to see how Bing stacks up against Google, check out this Google-Bing Search utility which allows you to compare search results from both engines side by side. (hat tip to MakeUseOf.com)

Like Google, Bing also offers a 411 phone service. From Lifehacker:

Bing 411 (1-800-246-4411) and its obvious Google counterpart, GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411), both offer voice searching of businesses around a certain city or town, and both can connect your call or send you a text message with more details...

What Bing offers to set it apart are two features for users without data-connected smartphones. One is turn-by-turn directions from wherever you are, and you can even save a "home" and "work" location with the service to save time, entirely over the phone... The weather service is fairly in-depth as well, providing to-the-minute temperatures and offering extended forecasts for where you are or where you're going.

Google Squared
The search engine is a bit different animal. According to Google, "Google Squared is an experimental search tool that collects facts from the web and presents them in an organized collection, similar to a spreadsheet. If you search for [roller coasters], Google Squared builds a square with rows for each of several specific roller coasters and columns for corresponding facts, such as image, height and maximum speed."

This one is easier to see than explain. I ran a search for supreme court justices. Take a peek at the results.
It's pretty nifty, but it's certainly not perfect. See this review at Jenkins Blog.

Full post as published by WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library on June 05, 2009 (boomark / email).