Windows Phone

Have you discovered all the impressive new things you can do with Bing on the latest version of Windows Phone? We’ve written before about our love of Bing, but since then so much has changed – the latest release includes some seriously cool new features. So let’s take a look at what you can do.

Tell me in a nutshell

Press the Search button on your phone. Interested in those new symbols you see at the bottom of the screen?  Working from the left you’ve got Bing Local Scout – your guide to the local area wherever you are, Bing Music – an essential tool for finding and downloading that catchy song you’re hearing right now, and Bing Vision – which lets you scan QR codes and translate text from or into foreign languages.

If you’re wondering about the last icon on the right, well, you can now also search using Bing with your voice. Why type when you can talk? Voice search on Bing is really simple. If you fancy ordering a pizza just ask – it will bring you local results to help you satisfy your hunger pangs.

Let’s take a closer look at each feature…

Local Scout

Local Scout is your personal neighbourhood guide (or ‘local scout’ you might say) that will help you find whatever you need be it a restaurant, shop or something fun to do within the local area. Pressing the Local Scout button will bring you back local, prioritised search results for the some of the things you’re most likely to need:

• Eat + drink – local bars, coffee shops and restaurants. In a new area of town craving a caffeine fix? Local Scout can help.
• See + do – local attractions and activities. Meeting a friend after work and decide to catch a film? Local Scout can show you the nearest cinema (as well as parks, museums and places of interest, if they’re more your thing).
• Shop – local shops. Get to your long-awaited holiday destination but realise you’ve forgotten to buy some essentials? Help is at hand with a simple click of Local Scout.
• Plus, there’s a highlights section which tells you about anything nearby that’s particularly worth checking out.

Bing Music

Ever been in a shop and wondered what the song was playing over the soundsystem? Or listened to the radio thinking ‘this is a great tune’ only for the DJ to cut to an ad break before he can tell you what it is? Well, Bing Music is the answer to your prayers. This new feature on Windows Phone will listen to the song, tell you what it is and then go to Zune Marketplace so you can purchase or stream the track.

Simply hit the Search button on your phone and then tap the music note at the bottom of the screen. After listening to the song for a few seconds, Windows Phone will show you who sings it, which album it’s on, and where to get it. Your Windows Phone will even save these search results for you automatically, so that you can quickly get back to where you where and download the song later.

Bing Vision

The camera on your Windows Phone works with the Bing Vision button to let you quickly scan QR codes and Microsoft tags to easily access websites and links.

Bing Vision is also great on holiday as it will translate text, like a menu for example. So if you don’t speak the local lingo too well, simply hover your phone over the menu in your restaurant of choice (found by Local Scout of course) then Bing Vision will translate for you.

To use any of the Bing Vision features just tap the Search button and then tap the symbol that looks like an eye. Scan whatever you want to scan and it’ll do the rest.

Voice Search

It’s clear that Bing can do a lot for you on your Windows Phone. It finds the local pizza place, the song playing while you eat and it’ll even translate the menu if they’ve gone all authentic and written it Italian. So what else can Bing on Windows Phone do to make your life easier?

Bring on Voice Search. By simply tapping the microphone icon in Bing, or by just holding down the Start button on your phone, Voice Search will be opened automatically. Using the built-in voice recognition your Windows Phone will help you find whatever you’re looking for. So you can even bring up details of the nearest pizza place without typing a single ‘z’. The voice recognition feature is also really handy for calling people, crafting text messages with your voice and opening apps like Office.

All these features are available on the latest release of Windows Phone. To find out how to get this, read ‘how to update your Windows Phone’. And if you’ve found some great places to go using Local Scout we’d love to hear about them…