Microsoft has introduced a voice activated version of the Bing search engine available via your mobile phone — or any phone, according to a blog post by Microsoft’s Eric Lingman. Dubbed Bing 411, users dial 1-800-BING-411 (1-800-246-4411) and can get answers to questions on the )following questions:
- Search for businesses
- Driving directions
- Traffic
- Sports
- Stocks
- Cheap gasoline – Tell Bing 411 your city/state or zip code and it will tell you the cheapest gasoline around.
- Travel
- Weather
- Movies
Microsoft Subnet editor Julie Bort is currently in Phoenix to speak at the Arizona IT Symposium on Tuesday. So we tried Bing-411 to get information on movies in the area. Bing 411 defaults to finding information from the area code on which you are calling, so you if you are traveling, you need to know the area code where you are located. While Microsoft isn’t the first to offer voice or text-based search, it is still a nifty service for those times when you need information and firing up a browser on your smartphone or laptop isn’t practical.
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