Microsoft announced the unveiling of its new search engine Bing, formerly known as Kumo.  Bing, launched early today, is labeling its search engine as the “Decision Engine” because of its ability to anticipate what a user wants based on their search.  Bing is suppose to help users make informed decisions faster by delivering relevant content in an easier, more organized manner.  For the new launch, Bing will focus primarily on four core searches; making a purchase, planning a trip, health research and localized business search.

Watch Bing in Action:

It seems that Microsoft is trying to carve out a niche in the search engine industry, by delivering a better user experience than Google for targeted searches.  For example, if someone is looking for a seafood restaurant in San Francisco, Bing will return relevant restaurants based on their search query. To go above and beyond, Bing will return not only restaurants in the area but restaurant hours, price estimates, type of restaurant,  user reviews, and a “Restaurant Scorecard” giving you a detailed rating of the restaurant experience.

For the avid traveler, Bing turns into a multi-airline search engine that functions similar to CheapTickets or Expedia.  By entering your travel destination and dates, Bing will pull in airfares for all of the major airlines including comparisons from third-party travel sites including Priceline, Expedia, CheapAir, Booking Buddy, and CheapTickets.

For those shopaholics out there, Bing turns into an online shopping center, giving you product details & features, user reviews, price comparisons from multiple stores, and sorting features to easily find what fits your needs.  With social participation pulled in from multiple sources, this shopping search engine helps you make decisions based on product positive/negative feedback, user reviews and ratings.

*images courtesy of wired.com