A year ago, Microsoft introduced the 'Snapshot' feature on Bing.com, offering quick snippets of info about specific people or topics in a box to the right of the search results page. Since then, Microsoft has added new features to Snapshot, and today the company unveiled even more bits of information that can show up when users search for a topic in Bing.
The Bing blog reveals that if a person has ever made a TED presentation, a link to those TED talks will appear in the Snapshot box if that person is the subject of a search, such as in the example above with Bill Gates. In addition, Snapshot could display a list of online college courses on a search topic or how a particular college or university ranks in polls. A specific historical event could also get its own Snapshot results, along with scientific theories and more info on certain animals. Download links to apps may be offered if a person searches for a specific program.
Finally, Bing has been improved so that if a person types in a specific question, such as, "Who composed Jingle Bells", the website is more likely to provide a specific answer (in this case, James Pierpont). Microsoft says, "By incorporating natural language understanding, Bing answers the question right in the search results and also shows you pertinent information in the right rail."
Source: Bing blog | Images via Microsoft
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