We have relaunched: What's new at ZDNet Asia?

Microsoft's Kumo sneaks out in public

Summary

Some of the design changes that are part of the upcoming search engine revamp are now in limited public testing, the software giant confirms.

Events

Microsoft MSDN/Developer Event
25 Mar 2010

One Marina Boulevard, Microsoft Singapore

IT Architect Regional Conference Singapore 2010
20 - 21 Apr 2010

Singapore Management University, Singapore

The Internet Show 2010
21-22 Apr 2010

Suntec Singapore

Microsoft has begun to broaden the testing of its next-generation search technology.

For the past two months, Microsoft has been running an internal test of the technology, which is code-named Kumo. However, some of the design changes that are part of that update are now in limited public testing.

Enthusiast Ryan Rea said last week that he got a Live Search result that looked a lot more like screenshots of Kumo than it does to Microsoft's standard search results. Of particular note is the left-hand navigation pane, a key feature of Kumo.

Rea said he started getting the new results using Live Search in Internet Explorer 8 using the release candidate build of Windows 7.

Using the same set-up, others still get the standard result. Microsoft told ZDNet Asia's sister site CNET News that Rea's result page is part of the company's testing efforts.

"We are continuously looking for ways to improve Live Search for both advertisers and consumers," the software maker said in a statement. "As part of that effort, we regularly conduct public tests of certain feature sets. This is an example of one such test with a very limited audience."

Microsoft is preparing for a launch of the Kumo technology as well as a rebranding of its search engine, though sources have said that name is not final and several other names have also been floating about.

Kumo, however, is expected to include more than just changes to the look of Microsoft's search engine. Among the enhancements is expected to be the inclusion of semantic search technology Microsoft got as part of last year's purchase of Powerset.

The software has a considerable game of catch-up to play as it has continued to trail Yahoo and Google despite years of investment. According to March numbers from Nielsen Online, Microsoft had 10.3 percent of the U.S. search market, as compared to 15.8 percent for Yahoo and 64.2 percent for Google.

This article was first published as a blog post on CNET News.

Talkback

Add your opinion

In order to post a comment, you need to be registered. (Sign In or register below)

Post your comment
Transform your business interactions with real-time voice, video and telepresence solutions.
Tech Vendor: Cisco

ZDNet Asia Live

Hi Guise my name is Adam shun, I read your Article, it give us very nice infomation and from here We can know country economy condition. ...

1 minute ago by Boucherh on Introducing Linux virtual containers with LXC

Hi Guise my name is Adam shun, I read your Article, it give us very nice infomation and from here We can know country economy condition. ...

2 minutes ago by Boucherh on Report: Memory card exposed 3,000 phones to virus

Reasons to care about Viacom v. Google - Zd Net Asia.com: Last Thursday's 200-page dump of cour... http://bit.ly/crqRzF #SME #UMG #WMG #EMI

4 hours 51 minutes ago by metaphysicalist on topsy

@BarackObama People voted you in for change. Why are you not listening on ACTA http://tinyurl.com/y8u56g9 #hcr HCR

6 hours 2 minutes ago by studio1411 on topsy

MB Kabbalah IChing - Free Software Downloads - ZDNet Asia: MB Kabbalah IChing is a zodiac sign based software that... http://bit.ly/czUQRr

6 hours 56 minutes ago by fighting_jew on topsy

Found this great little deal calculator http://www.zdnetasia.com/downloa...

14 hours 16 minutes ago by winstoncranford on topsy

Read my blog post on getting the most from your Nexus One: http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/m...

RT @3wconsulting: Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oY9f

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbA

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbz

Zdnetasia.com Estimated Worth $178,365 USD. Daily Ad Revenue:$244 USD, Daily Views:81,445 Pages... - http://www.haplog.com/www.zdneta...

The receivers don't transmit back to the satellite. Unless there is a phone line attached to the receiver, they don't have any wa...

2 days 14 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Apple to join the geolocation craze?

whatever little understanding I have we 'll only progress toward end of the world if we use HPCs to lenthen life of human being. Huma...

2 days 21 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing promises elixir of life

Thanks for the knowledgeable article on SDDs. Allas...when all this reasearch will happen in Indian Universities. Hope the new bill on Fo...

2 days 33 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on APAC HPC users eye solid-state drives

It was a good article. This brings a good opportunity for Indian IT firms to come up with new solutions in this field. HPC can become a b...

2 days 52 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing most-wanted job in Asia

COL KR DHARMADHIKARY(RETD) its very late to reply the link, but if it is still alive and looking for opportunity, i would like to know th...

2 days 49 minutes ago by deb021280 on Education takes off in rural India, helped by PCs

High performance computing (HPC) most-wanted job in Asia http://bit.ly/9vFC3i (via @zdnetasia) #singapore

RT @zdnetasia: EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. (cont) http://tl.gd/i5jjd

EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. http://bit.ly/9etOZW

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08 via @zdnetasia

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

"YOG should have social media rules, too - Internet - News" http://bit.ly/dn6vjD

2 days 36 minutes ago by socialsentiment on topsy

[TECH] URL Shorteners slow Web redirection. - http://bit.ly/bySnWK @zdnetasia

URL shorteners are great but they can slow web redirection & you pray it would never go down http://bit.ly/bySnWK via @zdnetasia

URL shorteners slow Web redirection. http://bit.ly/bySnWK

Chinese agencies cry foul over Google. http://bit.ly/by6rwV

all of sg's isps have been practising compulsory invisible proxy for all home subscribers at their backend since many years back alre...

4 days 33 minutes ago by melvinchia on Web filters mean bad news for business

it is not to good for china.
Proactol

4 days 18 minutes ago by nathonastle on Chinese ad partners beg Google for information

Very good explanation of JMX

5 days 23 minutes ago by Babith B on Managing applications with JMX

The reaction to a report issued Tuesday by Flurry Analytics managed to completely overlook some interesting news--the Android-based Motorola Droid outsold the original iPhone over the same period of time following their respective launches--to focus instead on the sales numbers for the Nexus One.

5 days 27 minutes ago by lonemavericks on diggs

Another ZTE story....

5 days 28 minutes ago by Moderate Your Greed on Philippines opens bid for final 3G license

We at www.fifosys.com have also seen a growth in IT outsourcing and anticipate it as a growing field.

5 days 2 minutes ago by sarah Jane on Companies' outsourcing spend to increase

I agree with you. The iSiVaL is super portable and TVs can't expand their image size. I recorded a video that might bring some ideas to...

5 days 32 minutes ago by Jesse B Andersen on Buying a projector? Try an LED TV instead

hermm... he deserved it.. he shud not talk abt sensitive things like tat, well, he shud think twice before saying all those things, event...

5 days 10 minutes ago by ... on Facebook user charged in Malaysia

Password manager tools are potential security threat. Criminals who hack into the computer can use the password manager to log onto any s...

6 days 10 minutes ago by ohanae on What defaults should random password generators use?