Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

Guns, Lots of Guns: A Video of Microsoft's Bing Visual Search, Aiming Right at Google

MatrixWeNeedGuns-20080503-084716

With all the Microsoft employees tweeting about Bing 2.0 last week (“Super imressive!”), especially its new Visual Search offering, launched yesterday, BoomTown thought it might be better just to show it in action.

So, here is a video that Microsoft (MSFT) did showing the service, powered by its Silverlight technology.

It is not comprehensive to speak of–only 50 specific visual search terms for now, such as “digital cameras” and “top songs.”

But it is still pretty cool and very pretty, as the thumbnails shuffle here and there depending on your request, which you can see in the video below.

It kind of reminds me of the “guns, lots of guns” scene from “The Matrix,” which I have also posted below.

That’s good, because Microsoft is going to need all the ammo (and innovation) it can get if it hopes to compete more effectively with Google (GOOG)–which, by the way, doubtlessly has its own version of visual search at the ready, in case Bing’s catches on.

Until then, here are the videos:


comments so far. Add yours.

  • Miranda Richardson

    It reminds me more of Guess Who?

  • http://blog.macb.net Mac Beach

    Reminds me of Whack-a-Mole

    It certainly takes more bandwidth to download those thumbnails PLUS the animation effects that go with them than the thumbnails themselves.

    So what I see is more form over substance. Microsoft’s specialty.

    Also, thanks for reminding me why I skipped Matrix 3.

  • Sam Harrison

    google is losing its edge

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