Microsoft has recently released a new version of Bing Desktop. This allows Windows XP users to enjoy a new range of features. For those users who already have Bing Desktop installed, you will probably see an update alert to install the new version. You can also download the Bing Desktop, which is easily available through a simple search.

At this point, already more than 10 million users have installed Bing Desktop globally. This is said to be a good figure considering that this application was launched a little over a year ago.  This is a pretty good enough user base, and it’s absolutely viable to go on making updates.

Bing Desktop Updates Provide Users a Variety of New Features

Here are some of the features that are available with the release:

• Inline Search: Users can carry out searches directly from a webpage, PDF or Word document file just by highlighting a phrase or word, and then clicking the Bing icon.
• Quicker Ways to Explore Things through Bing Desktop Apps: There will be a new Microsoft weather app released. Microsoft has also given the news and Facebook apps a complete makeover, which makes it easier for users to remain updated just at a glance.

Inline Search Allows Convenient Searching

The Inline search feature is considered to be most helpful. For example, when you’re reading anything, and need quick access to more information, with regard to a particular topic or phrase, you’ll find that normally people do the following: copy text >, start browser > past paste phrase in the search box.

You only need to highlight the words in the Inline Search, and it lets you search. All you need to do is click on the Bing icon. This allows you to obtain a preview of search results without needing you to quit what you are currently doing for the sake of a simple search.

This feature is very useful when you are busy reading some document and don’t want to really shift your entire attention to just one search. You will have the option of right-clicking in IE and Chrome to obtain the highlighted text. This takes you to Bing or Google.

Real-Time Updates in Bing’s Desktop App

All the other things that are new fall under the second point (Quicker Ways to Explore Things through Bing Desktop Apps). You have Real-Time Weather updates, which gives you customized updates wherever you are.

The news app allows you to remain updated across all categories, which are noted as: ‘World, Business, Entertainment, All, and US. Microsoft has created a cascading look which lets you view images as well as and textual summaries. It also gives you visual collections of the top trends on the Internet.

Finally, Microsoft has also integrated Facebook notifications to this Bing Desktop application, which is an attempt to bring in the social factor and make it an essential component of Bing. This is clearly a big update that all Bing users will appreciate. This app is considered to be a reasonably useful item for users particularly if they spend considerable time offline.

[Image via thenextweb]