Microsoft refines Live Search

28 September 2007

Software producer Microsoft has unveiled the new version of its Live Search and detailed the improvements.

They include a number of features beyond a typical click-and-search approach to yielding results.

An expansion of the search engine's 'Rich Answers' functionality allows for "specialised responses" to queries such as weather, maps and stocks.

Meanwhile, searches within categories such as celebrity, entertainment and images also yield specialised results, according to Microsoft.

And a "new web data extraction model" allows for on-the-fly refinements to vertical searches - such as providing ratings of products for sale online.

Satya Nadella, corporate vice-president of the search and advertising platform group, comments: "We have made dramatic progress in delivering a better search experience to our customers."

"Our engineering focus is on the areas that matter most to our 185 million consumers who use our service every month," the spokesperson adds.

Video search has also been upgraded, allowing users to witness a motion preview by rolling over thumbnails in the results, rather than clicking through to the page itself.

Category: MSN