Bing rolls out new features, partnership with Wolfram Alpha

Microsoft's Bing search engine is still pretty new. It just launched this summer. But the company is giving the site a minor facelift which includes improved local search results and a deal with Wolfram Alpha that allows Bing to answer some complex questions about math and health-related information.

It looks like the new features are coming in a phased rollout, because I can't seem to access them yet. But the Bing blog has a number of examples, showing the kind of results the search engine can nor provide thanks to Wolfram Alpha's computations. For example, if you search for "BMI Calculator," you'll get boxes to enter your height and weight and Bing will spit out your body mass index. If you ask it for nutritional information for steak or chicken, Bing will return a chart that looks a lot like the nutritional information that you find on food packaging in the US.

Microsoft is also merging MSN Vido and Bing, and adding features to Bing Maps such as the ability to change a route by dragging and dropping the lines on a map (which you can already can with Google Maps and Mapquest).

Tags: bing, bing maps, bing video, BingMaps, BingVideo, msn video, MsnVideo, wolfram alpha, WolframAlpha