Bing, in a continuing effort to bring more educational resources to students and teachers, has rolled out new specialized searches in a number of different areas, including molecules, constellations, citations, and royal ancestries. There is even a “World of Word” game that has been incorporated into the search results, as well as a virtual Rubik’s Cube.
Here’s a ist of some of the education-themed search features that were rolled out by Bing yesterday:
Constellation searches: A query for “constellations” or any specific constellation will return Bing’s interactive constellation viewer at the top of the search results. The constellation tool, using location technology, will display the starts and constellations that are currently above and below the horizon.
Molecule searches: Bing launched 2D models for any molecule query. If you do a search for molecules, such as methane, h2O molar mass, or C4h2, you’ll get an interactive 2D representation of the molecules at the top of search results.
Royal Family Tree searches: If users do searches for specific royal families and family members, such as “Queen Elizabeth II family tree” or “House of Tudor,” they will get an interactive ancestry tool that appears at the top of the search results.
Citations searches: When students are writing papers, Bing is now allowing them to access a citation tool that lists sample citation text. Users could do a search for “apa citation book” and will get a return on the correct way to list a book citation according to APA standards.
Not only with APA standards, Bing’s citation tool even includes MLA and Chicago Manual examples for websites, books, videos and journals.
World of Words game play: A “World of Words” interactive game has been added by Bing to search results for word-play searches. A query like “words that start with a” or “words containing b and end with k” will surface the “World of Words” tool at the top of search results.
Rubik’s Cube solver: The last thing that Bing added is a virtual Rubik’s Cube with rotate and drag functions to manipulate the classic toy from the 80’s. If you do a search “Rubik’s Cube solver or “Rubik’s Cube,” you’ll get returned with the interactive Rubik’s Cube. Not only can you solve it on your own, but you can use Bing’s instant solver tool to see step by step directions on how to solve it.
In addition to its most recent educational tools, Bing launched a periodic table directly in search, as well as an interactive times table and geometry calculator earlier this year.