These are the top 2 Microsoft product updates for digital markers for August 2021.
1. Microsoft plans to rebrand Bing for better visibility
Microsoft 365 is working on rebranding its search engine Bing, and the developer community has seen changes to the service in recent months.
According to Paul Thurrott, a distinguished technology journalist and blogger, Microsoft has either launched A/B testing – where some people see the old Bing branding and logo while others see “Microsoft Bing” – or it has completely switched to the new look.
It appears that Microsoft Bing’s logo and brand have made their way to Bing’s homepage as well.
As Microsoft has much more brand value than just Bing, it makes sense. Additionally, Microsoft 365 has replaced Office 365 as the company’s offerings.
As part of the rebranding, Microsoft Defender is now known as Microsoft Defender.
Google currently dominates the search engine market. Google had 84 percent of the market in June, while the Bing search engine accounted for only 6 percent (according to data from NetMarketShare).
According to Microsoft’s fourth fiscal quarter 2020 revenue results, search advertising revenue decreased by 18 percent or $353 million from the year-ago quarter as advertisers spent less on ads or paid search results.
Furthermore, Microsoft has updated its Outlook for Android app to enable long-press integration with Bing search.
There have been reports of users of Microsoft Outlook on Android devices being able to perform Bing searches when they select text.
If a user long presses on a word in the email text when opening the Outlook app to check an email, a pop-up menu will appear with three options: Web Search, Translate, and Bing Search.
2. Predictive Text from Microsoft
In a report by Tech Radar, “Word for Windows: Text Predictions” is included in the Microsoft 365 roadmap. The status column states that it is in development currently, whereas its release date is stated as “March CY2021.” Additionally, the Products column stated that it will be available for Windows, Desktop, and Worldwide, suggesting that it can be used across the following platforms.
A context-based word prediction feature was first hinted at by Redmond during its beta test of MS Word, MS 365, and MS Outlook, which were targeted at North American web users in September 2020.
At the time of writing, the multinational tech giant stated that their goal is to help users achieve a smooth writing process by providing a quick and accurate text-prediction feature.
Since the feature will save you a lot of time and effort when writing, you will be able to spend more time editing your articles for blogs, dissertations, and other academic-related purposes.
In your journey with Microsoft Word, you can reach for the toolbox as your go-to. If the feature is launched, you can expect your typing to become much better than it was previously. You can enable the text-prediction feature by clicking the Tab key. If you want to disable it, press Escape.
Please do not worry if you have a different writing style that you think will not work. Depending on what type of writing you’re used to, the feature will adjust itself. Aside from its time-saving advantage, it also ensures that there are no grammatical or spelling errors.
The company wants to make it easy for you to get back on track in writing, according to a report by PCMag. The machine-learning model that runs the text-prediction feature generates a variety of suggestions closely associated with the text in your document. The company has added that it is not possible to save and view the content, but you will be able to do so if it becomes a part of the feedback mechanism.
