In other words, bing now has some calculation abilities. MS is running an ad with this particular calculation suggested as a Bing search and a background photo of a blackboard.
Well, as you see, it works. And (I presume) they would like you think about the fact that throwing the same equation at Google does nothing useful (inexplicably, the first result was a page about BSD).
But I wonder how many users of this feature will be familiar with the rules of operator precedence? I admit I read it as:
x-3
--- = ... << I can't format it right but you get the idea
x-1
After testing it with Google, I went to Alpha, which (unsurprisingly) handled it with aplomb, giving it to me with proper notation as well and making me aware of my mistake. So I tried it as (x-3) / (x-1) = (x-4) / (x-5), which Alpha also handled with Aplomb (11/3 if you are lazy).
However, inputing the latter into Bing (without or without spaces for padding) gave no calculation or result, but just a bunch of (mostly unrelated) search results. Seems rather counter-productive on MS's part.
Well, as you see, it works. And (I presume) they would like you think about the fact that throwing the same equation at Google does nothing useful (inexplicably, the first result was a page about BSD).
But I wonder how many users of this feature will be familiar with the rules of operator precedence? I admit I read it as:
x-3
--- = ... << I can't format it right but you get the idea
x-1
After testing it with Google, I went to Alpha, which (unsurprisingly) handled it with aplomb, giving it to me with proper notation as well and making me aware of my mistake. So I tried it as (x-3) / (x-1) = (x-4) / (x-5), which Alpha also handled with Aplomb (11/3 if you are lazy).
However, inputing the latter into Bing (without or without spaces for padding) gave no calculation or result, but just a bunch of (mostly unrelated) search results. Seems rather counter-productive on MS's part.
Apologies if this is excessively trivial.