Microsoft Bing Desktop offers a carefully curated collection of images to serve as wallpaper on your computer. This free Microsoft Store app features one new image daily and gives you access to other options available.
Importantly, downloaded Bing photos are copyrighted – meaning that any commercial use without prior consent would require permission from Bing.
Backgrounds
Microsoft’s search engine, Bing, is known for the beautiful imagery it features on its homepage; now you can bring that beauty right into your desktop with Bing Wallpaper! This free program changes your Windows desktop background daily with one from Microsoft’s collection of high-resolution images that should look stunning even on 4K monitors. Each photo also appears prominently on Bing so that you can learn more about each piece!
Once installed, Bing Wallpaper will create a small app icon on your taskbar that, upon clicking it, opens a settings menu with two options – cycling through recent wallpapers and activating daily refresh. If you would like to change your current wallpaper using Bing photos instead, clicking this small app icon will display a list of Bing photos along with their location details.
If you enable daily refresh, the Bing Wallpaper app will download a different image onto your PC every day and set it as wallpaper automatically. Alternatively, click “Downloads” from the menu’s drop-down list for a detailed view of all available downloads; here, each day’s downloaded photo can be seen and the information page provides options on whether or not it should become your wallpaper; alternatively you could visit Bing to learn more about what the image represents.
Alternately, you can set the Bing wallpaper from Windows itself. It’s fairly straightforward – right-click your desktop, select Bing Wallpaper option and use either left or right arrow to select either current photo as wallpaper or previous one that was used as one.
Not only can you set the Bing image of the day as your wallpaper, but you can also enable a slideshow that will automatically cycle through selected photos at specified intervals. Plus, you can change its size or set one as desktop wallpaper – as well as adding it to lock screen! – or disable it via the app settings.
Search
The Microsoft Bing desktop search program brings all the beauty and functionality of its online counterpart directly into your system. Similar to browser plugins, this app works similarly but won’t add additional toolbars or interfere with Internet Explorer settings. Once installed, this app enables you to use Bing as both wallpaper and default search engine – plus uncheck options as necessary!
Bing search features are designed to provide users with the most pertinent results for their queries. Bing’s algorithms identify popular pages and prioritize those at the top of results lists; Bing also features additional searches that might be beneficial; for instance if you are purchasing a laptop it might be worthwhile investigating which brands are most reliable as well as hearing what other users have said about them.
Trending news items derived from social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook provide another great feature that allows you to stay abreast of recent developments related to your search topic and gain a different viewpoint of what is truly going on around us.
Bing is an alternative search engine and many users prefer its user interface over that of Google; however, when compared for performance purposes Google usually holds its edge.
Microsoft Bing can bring its powerful search capabilities right into your computer with this free downloadable version, easily replacing the search capabilities of your default browser while using minimal system resources when running in the background.
Microsoft Bing can be found as both a standalone web service and integrated into many of Microsoft’s apps and services. For instance, it comes installed with iOS versions of Apple’s mobile operating system for use through Siri as an integrated search option. Furthermore, there is also an Android Bing app.
News
Bing Desktop will offer news and interests as a new way to stay abreast of what’s happening globally. It provides quick summaries and links out for further coverage, helping keep up with all of today’s headlines.
This feature is currently in a preview form for Windows 10 users on the Dev Channel, giving them access to news and interests via taskbar search menu items or dedicated apps such as Bing News Feed. Machine learning technology will be employed to analyze user behavior to provide customized content; location services will also help facilitate an enhanced local focus.
No information has been made public regarding how often news updates will refresh; however, you can click an icon in your taskbar to manually switch through stories – similar to how Bing on mobile shows you news from various topics such as weather, stocks and sports on an ongoing basis.
Microsoft’s new Bing joined the AI chatbot bandwagon when it debuted earlier this year, teaming up with ChatGPT creator OpenAI to offer its proprietary version known as Bing Bot. Powered by an updated GPT language model known as Prometheus Model that promises faster and more capable results than GPT 3.5, Bing Bot promises an engaging customer experience for users.
At its release, Microsoft’s chatbot made headlines for its bizarre responses to questions put to it. But following some backlash and training adjustments, it has since been modified to be more polite and less confusing; limits have also been placed on how often Microsoft chats per day and sends message to it per session.
Though initially controversial, Bing Bot seems to be quickly growing as an effective search and news reading tool. It fits right in with Windows 10’s multimodality focus by supporting keyboard, mouse, touch, pen and voice input; when more newsrooms require subscribers or depend on advertising to fund journalism it’s great that there’s now a free alternative that is cross-platform accessible.
Maps
Bing Desktop offers several ways for users to explore locations and get directions using maps, including Road View, Aerial View and Bird’s Eye View as well as satellite images. Neighborhood labels help users to easily identify areas within cities as they search for addresses. It features multiple zoom levels with an intuitive user interface; supports most common forms of color blindness; features black-and-white design compatible designs for those without color vision; updates its geographical coverage every month!
Bing Maps is compatible with most Web browsers and operating systems, as well as offering real-time traffic conditions in 35 metropolitan areas worldwide via Windows Sidebar Gadgets. Users may add “user contributed” items such as businesses, landmarks or buildings; geocoding in bulk helps reduce downtime and bandwidth usage costs; plus it allows for user contributions via its “User Contributed Item Upload Tool.”
Users can search for specific businesses, landmarks and people using the search box at the top of the screen. Results appear both on the left-side rail and as pushpins on a map linked together by numbers. Businesses and landmarks can also be searched for reviews and descriptions drawn from Wikipedia to give more in-depth descriptions of places and landmarks visited by users.
Bing Maps provides driving, transit and walking directions for up to 25 destinations or stops at once, taking into account time of day when calculating fastest routes. In September 2010, it added public transit directions in certain cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis Newark Metro Area New York City Philadelphia Seattle
Bing Maps may not offer as many features as Google Maps, but it still offers plenty of tools for finding the quickest route between two points. Furthermore, it’s free and can be used without installing additional plug-ins; its only major drawback being it doesn’t offer trip planners like its rival does and inaccuracy in predicting travel times when compared with Google Maps.
