14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is making it easier for users to find local destinations in their area by using Bing on their mobile devices.
Owners of smartphones can leverage Bing’s new local search capabilities in order to find locations near their position.
The Redmond company’s mobile flavor of its search/decision engine is smart enough to calculate the customer’s position based on the capabilities built into the phone, and tailor result accordingly.
This is possible through the local section on m.bing.com, Microsoft revealed.
“Using the GPS on your phone (or nearby cell towers), Bing shows you a list of suggestions based their popularity, your location, and the time of day,” explained Andy Chu, from the Bing for Mobile team.
“You can choose the radius for your search, narrowing to 5 miles for congested areas,” he added.
Local search on m.bing.com is also smart enough to take into consideration the time of day when returning results for user queries.
For example, searches for a place to go out in the morning will return destinations best suited to drink a hot cup of coffee or to go shopping.
Results to searches performed at night are another deal altogether, with Bing offering mainly pubs and entertainment locations.
“Best of all, you can display all listings on a single map,” Chu said. “On the home screen, click the “Local” button. You’ll see a list of places nearby. You can dive into a particular category, like Restaurants, or choose to see all local categories.”
“Find something you like? Save them all to your Favorites using the “Save” button. Now click “What’s nearby” to find a list of places within a particular distance range.”
“Once you’ve saved a few local listings, go to your Favorites page (either from a local detail page, or from the home page). Select the ones you want, and you can see them all on a map, or send an email to friends with all the details,” he added.
Because it is capable of offering not only results to searches but also place them on a map, local search on m.bing.com can also map out a route to the destination of your choice.
