Microsoft Bing Search announces expanded intelligent answer coverage & more

People want to feel confident in an answer to their question, and often need to verify information multiple times before being confident that it is correct. That’s why when we launched intelligent answers in December, one of our experiences showed you answers supported by multiple websites when you asked a question. Starting this May, we began expanding the coverage of these intelligent answers in the US and the UK, and enhancing the experience by showing up to 5 websites that support the answer, so you can find answers with less effort.

Hotel booking can be a pain, requiring you to do a bunch of searches and try several sites to ensure you’re getting the best deal.

Now on Bing you can simply search for hotels in a desired location, and when you click on one of the options you’ll see a full-page experience which lists options by price, location, rating, and availability by date. The experience also provides an aggregated view of this across popular third party booking sites like Expedia and Tripadvisor, so once you’re done browsing you can click straight through to booking via your preferred service. This experience is live in the US and the UK, where users will get results for both domestic and many international locations.

This experience is part of our ongoing investment to help you book hotels with less effort, so stay tuned for more exciting updates soon!

We recently enhanced the weather results in Bing to help you plan your day even better.

Now, on top of the usual forecast information, you can see a live radar map for the city of your interest, as well as easily accessible links to your favorite weather sites. Bing also provides information on nearby cities’ forecasts, and one for average temperature, rainfall, and snowfall, so you have full context on what to expect.

We just launched the #AmplifyIngenuity Urban Photo Contest, which gives Bing’s community of photography enthusiasts the opportunity to share their photos of amazing things in cities for a chance to be featured on the homepage. Whether it’s architecture, engineering, or pieces of urban technology, we are surrounded by examples of human ingenuity in the only environment created by and for people: the urban jungle.

The first-place winner wins the Urban Explorer Prize Pack, which includes a Surface Laptop, Sony a6500 camera and lens, Filson photographer’s backpack, $1000 airfare gift card, and a chance to have their picture featured on the Bing homepage!