Something New!!!???

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Search Engine arrive.  In fact, since Cuil, there hasn’t been any.  But who would blame anyone for not wanting to start a new one, after all, Google rules the market and knocking them off their hill is a tall order.  However, Microsoft seems to think that owning the Operating System market is not enough and feel the need to challenge them.  Enter Bing!!  I guess Microsoft is telling Google to “Bing It On”!!!!  (Sorry, I couldn’t resist).  Microsoft has revamped Windows Live Search which was a flop and has come out with this new thing.  The official release is on June 3rd, but low and behold, you can use Bing Preview now.  I was searching around on it for a while, and I have to admit, unlike Cuil, it is not half bad.  I received search results similar to Google and Yahoo, and in a format that was nice to look at.  I like the option in which you can choose what you want to explicately search for, like Images, Videos, Shopping, or News among others.  Choosing one of these will return results for only these options…..a really neat feature.  Like I said earlier, I cannot imagine anyone being able to knock Google off their pedestal, but this one is really not that terrible to use.  The battle is going to be to get people to change their searching habits.

Now, one new Search Engine is rare, but how about two within a couple of weeks.  Now this second one is not really a Search Engine by definition but it is absolutely cool. It is called Wolfram Alpha.  Developed over the past 20+ years by a man named Stephen Wolfram.  His life long ambition was to make all of the world’s knowledge searchable on the internet.  Stephen Wolfram earned his PHD from CalTech at the age of 20 and is known throughout the world for is Hawking-like intelligence.  Mathematica was Wolfram’s first achievement and he has built on this to create Wolfram Alpha.  Now, like I said, this is not a Search Engine by definition, but it does some truly amazing things.  Type in your name, and it will tabulate things like how many people share your name, it’s ranking in the world, and what is truly amazing, it will try to guess your age, basing it on birth records.  You can even type an algebraic statement in the search bar and it will calculate the answer, along with the supporting math. Type in two company names, like Microsoft and Apple, into the search bar and the results will amaze you. Like I said, you cannot do a Google or Bing search (Bing Search??  Just doesn’t sound right, but I tried) on this engine, but it is definitly useful, and the information it provides is amazing.

Try Bing HERE.…

Try Wolfram Alpha HERE….

Let me know what you think…….