back to article Channel 4 raises Bing word-extinction alarm

Roll over Wittgenstein, Channel 4 has a bold claim to make, thanks to New Media guru Benjamin Cohen. It's trumpeted in what must be the weirdest press release we've received in years - or at least since the Blooks one. We reproduce it in full, trying to give you a flavour of the insane typography: PLEASE CREDIT CHANNEL 4 NEWS …

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  1. phen
    FAIL

    So like Google image search?

    Or do they mean I have to draw a picture of what I want?

    I hope they don't mean I have to navigate a 3D environment.

    "Excuse me, where is the online PC shop?"

    "Oh, just click past the food court, then click left at the gift store. It's a few stores down on the right."

  2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge
    Go

    El Reg No Seconded and thereby Squared. Is there A.N.Other for ITs XXXXPonential Cubing*

    "So will Bing makes words obsolete? The Reg says: No."

    Words Rule ..... Hence is Power and Control a Mind Game which requires AIRing of Basic Text for Simple Advantage in Complex Artificially Created Concepts for Magical and Mystical Ethereal Enigma that is Transubstantiation and Elevation into Realms of Immaculate Grace....... with ITs Plunging Destructive Descents for Confirmed and Serial Fools Battling Themselves in Disgrace.

    *Thus does such Extrapolative Progression deliver to a Few, Power over All and also makes IT available to All for Global Control of Head Quarters in Humanised States of Greater Consciousness/Areas of a More Total Information Awareness, Perception and/or Knowledge.

    Very 42Entertainment42Edutain, Andrew.:-)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Why not?

    I think this article has a well thought out premise - search engines collect data about data. What this is suggesting is that the method by which those results are sorted and presented could be enhanced by adding cognative analysis first, and then where appropriate, displaying the resulting options visually rather than textually.

    Imagine a situtation where you walk up to a computer and say to it 'can you find the best prices on flights from london to new york - I need to leave this weekend. And also, I want to buy a suit locally ahead of the trip'. The voice software uses voice recognition to determine who you are and links this to a database containing all your personal data. It then converts the query to text and splits it into two queries.

    One search goes off and explores all the sites offering flights, plugging in your personal data, and filters the results as a 'here's the best price, with options for times and dates - should I use your personal details to book and pay for this?' You authenticate to the touch screen and say Yes, and it books the flights.

    The second search grabs your location from satnav data and takes your personal measurements from your private data. Using this it does a search of all the local shops in your area which sell suits and have stock, using real time data feeds from their inventory databases. It then calls up the graphics of the suits and lays them on top of your avatar stored in your private database. Using a graphical viewer, such as Second Life, you can wander into the shops and try on the suits to see how you look in the virtual mirror. If you want to buy it, pay in the 'game' and walk to the real shop and collect the item.

    Science fiction? Not really. All of the above is entirely doable with today's technology. The change required is to link these systems, and integrate them with intellegent search capable of displaying the results in a variety of textual, visual, and virtual data whcih you can better interact with and act upon.

  4. John Doe 6

    Only one in four ??

    Then you don't know what you're looking for.

    I'm getting what I'm looking for 7 out of 10 times on Google, and that's not porn I'm looking for (when you are looking for porn, then you are only getting 1 of 4).

  5. Filippo Silver badge
    WTF?

    O_o'

    ?!??!?

    8-O

  6. Mark 121

    "Only one in four searches actually has a satisfactory outcome on the first attempt."

    Only one in four searches uses appropriate search terms?

  7. Qux
    Coat

    Microsoft must be so proud...

    Wow, with friends like that, who needs enemas?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Things it will make extinct

    Here's a partial list of things bing will make extinct...

    MSN search

    Windows Live Search

    Yahoo Search

    The verb "bing it"

    Several million $ from MS coffers.

    I'm sure there's many others.

    Only one item on the above list is based on the merit of the bing search engine... that'd be the fourth item; the rest are due to MS throwing money at it.

  9. KenBW2
    WTF?

    Erm,

    "At the top we have the real-time tweets coming in. Beneath that we have the top articles on a particular keyword. Beneath each article we pull in the most reputable tweets about that article. We calculate the reputation on how often people tweet, how often they're tweeting spam, how often they're re-tweeted."

    In english?

  10. Daemon ZOGG
    Pirate

    Stefan Weitz and Internet Search Engines...

    [Stefan Weitz]

    "..knowledge that we've either licensed from a provider or knowledge we've calculated from our huge computer resource"

    M$ philosophy - licenses and proprietary ownership on human knowledge.

    [stefan weitz - Bing]

    "We think that's a different experience that works better there than a bunch of links."

    Obviously, Stefan Weitz has not taken the time to learn how to use Google. Or, RTFM on search engine syntax. :(

    Graphical results is one of many possiblities with Google, Yahoo!, Dogpile, and others.

    ;)

  11. Andrew 13
    WTF?

    Microsoft, home of innovation

    It's hard not to laugh at the way Microsoft perceives itself, a beacon of innovation, compared to the way I see it, a shop for hackers which nicks other people's ideas two years later. 3D search my foot - my money's on a search engine called "google".

  12. Ihre Papiere Bitte!!
    WTF?

    possibly

    The year's most deserving article for this icon.

  13. Simon Waddington

    I'm...

    ...lost for words

  14. John Tserkezis

    Let's face it.

    It's just another search engine, where the vendor wants YOU to see THEIR ads instead of their competitors.

  15. Big-nosed Pengie
    FAIL

    Um...

    What?

  16. Thomas 18
    Joke

    "Only one in four searches actually has a satisfactory outcome on the first attempt."

    That would be the one on Google, the other 3 were Bing, Yahoo and Altavirusta

  17. Poor Coco
    Dead Vulture

    Oh, sure, language is dead.

    That's why I communicate with everyone using flash-cards and not those obsolete old words!

  18. aNthraXx
    Headmaster

    Tisk

    "reputable tweets"

    I wonder if this phrase would appear if I searched bing for 'oxymoron'.

  19. I_am_Chris
    FAIL

    In other words...

    Microsoft is again trying to out-guess what it is *I* want to do. This has all the hallmarks of clippy all over again.

    I don't know about others, but generally I do know what it is I'm looking for: a hotel in barcelona, how many moons jupiter has, etc. I rarely type random words in the search bar to see what 'bubbles up from Twitter'...

    Why is it MS always think they know better than *I* do on how I want to use *my* computer? FAIL!

  20. Goat Jam
    Paris Hilton

    Sorry

    Had to stop reading after the 3rd paragraph because my brain exploded.

    Now I know how Paris feels. Not in the good way though.

  21. TeeCee Gold badge
    WTF?

    @Goat Jam

    It seems you're in good company. This article's under the Orlowski byline and yet it has comments enabled.

    Quite obviously he must have suffered a complete meltdown and personality change while attempting to understand that load of excruciating web2.0rhoea.

  22. Dennis O'Neill

    Ah the old 'words v visuals' debate

    As someone who's spent the past 30 years in the communications business, I get this all the time. "Language will become extinct as visual communication becomes more important." Sigh. 25 years ago, someone said to me if a picture paints 1,000 words, how come you can't draw this sentence?

  23. James Pickett

    Bong

    >self-proclaimed "search evangelist" Stefan Weitz

    You can see why. Looks like MS and he deserve each other.

  24. breakfast Silver badge
    Stop

    Last stages

    "He explained: "Now we're entering the last stage of this decade..."

    We've got about five weeks left in this decade. That's a pretty short last stage.

    Perhaps it's just going to be a boss battle.

  25. This post has been deleted by its author

  26. Richard 102

    Self-proclaimed

    Well there y'are.

  27. Peter Mc Aulay
    Badgers

    Poor sod

    That Weitz fellow should get out more. Search evangelist indeed...

  28. unitron
    Coat

    @TeeCee

    "This article's under the Orlowski byline and yet it has comments enabled."

    That's one of the major signs of the end times, isn't it?

    Mine's the one with a Chamber of Commerce map of the island of Patmos in the pocket.

  29. takuhii

    Once again Microsoft suffer foot in mouth

    Microsoft has once again proved what a waste of space they are. The fact that they have to employ some ORC to "lure you away" from "other" search engines. This;

    a) makes him sound like a paedophile

    b) demonstrates how useless the Bing engine really is

    If they can't get you use Bing because it's useful (which it's not), how the hell is some Over-Paid Microsoft exec going to manage it?

    Come up with an original idea Microsoft!!

  30. Geoffrey Summerhayes
    Thumb Down

    So looking for info on The Prisoner

    Eye, sun, anubis, falcon, cat, rover?

  31. Richard 102
    Paris Hilton

    @Geoffrey Summerhayes

    "Eye, sun, anubis, falcon, cat, rover?"

    Which will return optical recognition software for solaris, using a GNU outgoing mail processor, used by the Atlanta NFL team and Danny John-Jules to document their old British-Leyland automobiles.

  32. Benjamin Cohen
    Thumb Down

    This press release has nothing to do with me

    I don't know why you think I have anything to do with this press release. I wasn't even working that day! It was sent by Channel4 News Online.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    Future!

    In the future I will have a hoverbike, but more importantly I will be able to search the Internet 28% faster. There I will be, driving a few millimeters above ground level, searching 28% faster than the people of today. Basically I will be a god. Perhaps I will even be using IPv6.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    bing

    i like bing.

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