Microsoft’s search engine Bing is down for many, with Copilot similarly unavailable for affected users. DuckDuckGo and ChatGPT search are also impacted, as they use the Bing API.
The issue appears to have started in the early hours of the morning ET, and was partially acknowledged by Microsoft a few hours later …
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In September, Bloomberg reported that Apple had held exploratory talks with Microsoft about acquiring Bing as recently as 2020. In newly unsealed court filings this week, more details about the acquisition talks between Apple and Microsoft have surfaced.
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OpenAI released the first official ChatGPT app for iOS in May, following the roaring success of the AI-based platform. Since then, the app has been updated with many new features, including support for Siri Shortcuts. Now the ChatGPT app for iOS is getting another update, this time with Microsoft’s Bing built in – but only for paid subscribers.
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Microsoft has been putting a lot of effort into integrating Bing Search with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Now the company is rolling out a nice update to the Bing iOS app, which adds new widgets with a shortcut that takes the user directly to Bing Chat – Microsoft’s chatbot based on GPT technology.
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Microsoft is out with its latest generative AI integration today. The company’s SwiftKey keyboard for iOS and Android now features GPT AI smarts which means you can seamlessly use it across any app on iPhone and Android smartphones that work with a third-party keyboard.
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Microsoft has taken the next step in its plan to evolve its Bing search engine and Edge browser with the latest artificial intelligence has to offer. After integrating OpenAI’s ChatGPT last month, “Bing Image Creator” has arrived on iOS/Android and desktop powered by an “advanced version” of OpenAI’s DALL·E to create an image with just words.
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After kicking off the launch of its new Bing experience on desktop last week to early adopters, Microsoft has released the new Bing and Edge iOS apps with its AI ChatGPT integration in preview. Along with that, the AI-powered Bing is available in the latest iOS Skype release.
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After announcing its new Edge browser and updated Bing search engine that integrates a ChatGPT experience via OpenAI last week, Microsoft opened up a waitlist for the feature. Now the first users are getting access to the capability. However, it’s only on desktop for now with Microsoft saying iOS and Android support is not “ready yet.”
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A team of security researchers has found Bing user data exposed on a server owned by Microsoft. The data comes from both iOS and Android versions of the Bing app. The data exposed includes unique user IDs, search queries, location, and even webpages visited as a result of searches …
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It looks like Siri and Google are friends again and Bing is in the rear view mirror. In a major shift, Apple is changing its search results provider for Siri and Spotlight on iOS and macOS from Microsoft’s Bing to the vastly more popular Google.
The change has started to roll out today and should be in effect for all users by the end of the day. For users, this means Siri and Spotlight will now provide the same search results as Safari by default (and in a lot of cases show better search results).
As part of announcements at Microsoft’s Build 2016 conference today, Skype announced a new ‘Bots’ platform that it’s launching today in preview mode for developers and users in the iPhone and iPad apps (as well as Android and Windows, but not on Mac).
Users of the Bing app for iPhone are getting some welcomed improvements today with the latest update bringing a new barcode scanner with price comparison functionality and a new deal finder feature.
Microsoft today has introduced a new app for iOS and Android that makes it considerably easier for friends and family to make plans while on the go. Dubbed Tossup, the app was developed by the Microsoft Garage, which means it implores new ideas and thinking that the company hopes will catch on to the masses.
Three years after Apple launched its own iOS Maps app to replace Google as its iPhone and iPad map provider, the Cupertino company is readying its first major enhancements to the service. While Apple was known to be gearing up for the launch of a mass transit directions service this fall in a handful of cities, sources have revealed that it is also developing its first entirely in-house mapping database to reduce its reliance on TomTom, using a fleet of mysterious vans to take still photos of business storefronts to replace Yelp photos, and building a 3D Street View feature. Apple has been using the sensor-equipped vans in cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, and New York since earlier this year, and, below, we detail how the vehicles are advancing Apple’s plans for the future of Maps…
Rumors that Apple might be creating its own search engine started doing the rounds last fall, when webmasters started seeing web crawler visits from IP addresses starting with 17 – the IP address block owned entirely by Apple. Apple has now officially confirmed in a support document that it is operating its own web crawler called Applebot.
Applebot is the web crawler for Apple, used by products including Siri and Spotlight Suggestions. It respects customary robots.txt rules and robots meta tags. It originates in the 17.0.0.0 net block.
While the wording is clearly intended to suggest that this is just business as usual, both the fact that Apple is running its own web crawler at all, and the somewhat vague wording, are interesting …
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Microsoft’s search engine Bing has updated its iPad app to offer instant translation of webpages, and the ability to display trending stories and the image of the day in the Notification Center. The app could previously translate via a Safari extension, but can now do so within the app.
The iPhone app also got a visual refresh, with a swipe-up ‘popular now’ tab at the bottom and the ability to swipe through a choice of background images for the app’s homescreen.
Bing and Yahoo are both reportedly making a bid to become the default search engine for iOS when Google’s contract expires next year.
Both iPhone and iPad apps are a free download from iTunes.
Via TNW
Last week Mozilla announced that its Firefox browser would be dropping Google as the default search engine in favor of Yahoo. While it’s a good move for Yahoo, it won’t gain the company the exposure that comes with being the default search engine on something more widely used, such as Apple’s Safari browser on iOS devices.
That position has been held by Google since the iPhone’s launch in 2007, but the agreement that made the Mountain View-based company the default site for all of Safari’s searches will expire next year, and The Information reports that Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing are both vying for the spot.
Spotlight, the search tool built into OS X, got a lot smarter in Yosemite – but one developer thinks it could go a whole lot further. He’s developed Flashlight, an app that extends the capabilities of Spotlight to include weather animations and Wolfram Alpha searches.
More interestingly, he’s intending it to act as an unofficial API other developers can use to add functionality to Spotlight …
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The Bing Search app has been updated to include the translation feature first demoed at WWDC, as part of the initial unveiling of iOS 8 extensions.
Very simply, downloading the update adds a Bing Translate action to your Activities list in Safari. Enable the action and then visit a website in a foreign language. Pressing the Translate action in the share sheet will machine translate the webpage’s text to the system language, by default. The text content changes inline and happens very quickly.
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0pjD4qpIpg]
Microsoft ads seem to make a habit of bashing Apple, even using Siri’s voice to do so – and without the company concerning itself too much about accuracy. Microsoft has now released the 30-second commercial it first showed at its developer’s conference back in April …
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One big change for Apple with the unveiling of OS X Yosemite today is Bing web searches in the completely revamped Spotlight feature. Spotlight, which allows users to look up anything locally on their Mac as well as perform web searches, received a redesigned user experience in Yosemite, but it might have also received a switch to Bing from Google search.
To be fair, the “web search” feature of spotlight prior to Yosemite actually just defaults to the default search engine in your browser of choice. If that happens to be Safari or Chrome like it is for most users, that meant Spotlight would typically send users to a Google search results page if they hadn’t changed their default preference. Now, Apple is listing Bing searches– but not Google– as a feature of Spotlight regardless of the default option (pictured above). We’ve yet to confirm that Bing is the only web search option for Spotlight in OS X Yosemite, as we’ve not yet been able to get the new Spotlight web search feature to work properly in the first beta.
While Spotlight is going to use Bing, Apple’s revamped search bar in Safari still uses Google as does iOS 8. Its easy to imagine Apple is only continuing to use Google search in Safari due to contractual agreements, but it’s harder to imagine it just decided to use Bing for Spotlight with no plans to possibly use it in its other products down the road.
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Microsoft has released a major update for its Bing app for iPad. The new app features a revamped interface to match the aesthetic of Apple’s latest OS along with a host of other features and improvements. Users are now able to save the daily image found on the search engine’s home page to their camera rolls for use as a wallpaper or whatever other purpose they decide.
Images and bookmarks can now be saved in the app and synced via Mirosoft’s SkyDrive service to other devices. Search results can now be shared to Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms. Improvements and updates have been made to maps results, the Bing logo, and other graphics throughout the app.
Apple’s head of iTunes Eddy Cue is live on stage during Apple’s WWDC 2013 keynote presentation today and just unveiled a brand new, revamped version of Siri that includes a lot of new features on top of a redesign that fits in with the rest of the new look for iOS 7. It also announced a new service dubbed “iOS in the car” that will bring more functionality to the consoles of some vehicles through a partnership with several car manufacturers. The integration will allow you to place calls, have more control of Siri, and view maps, much of which we already revealed leading up to today’s event.
As for Siri, the app now has an all new voice and users will also have the ability to change the voice between male and female. New highly quality voices in both male and female will initially be available only in English, French, and German, but Apple plans to add more over time. That’s not all, however, Siri is also getting a bunch of new features and integration with other web services such as Wikipedia.
Eddy Cue noted during his demo of the redesigned Siri that you’ll now be able to control a lot more functions on your iPhone with Siri, such adjusting the brightness of your display, enabling Bluetooth, or playing a voice mail. The just unveiled iTunes Radio will also have Siri integration.
"Surprise: Apple’s Siri adopts Microsoft @Bing for web search" http://t.co/fHXrpjZOoD via @GeekWire
— Microsoft Stories and News (@MSFTnews) June 10, 2013
Microsoft is happy about Apple’s decision to include Bing web results (and not Google) in Siri for iOS 7.
Siri will also be able to answer a lot more questions in iOS 7, which is in part thanks to the integration of new web services including Wikipedia, Twitter (to view Twitter account updates through Siri), and web search results from Bing.
The new in-car features through ‘iOS in the car’ will be arriving in vehicles from several car manufacturers in 2014.
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