July 07, 2009

In the next few weeks, the full version of Bing that US citizens currently see will arrive in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, and the UK (which will likely see changes first). For whatever reason, Microsoft decided that Canadians should get a form of Bing close to the US version (categorizations work for Canada but not for the other four countries), though it is still missing numerous features like hotspots on the homepage. All of these countries, apart from Canada, sport a "Beta" tag under the Bing logo, and none of them are as feature-complete as the US version.

Remember that no matter your location, you can always click on the location (in the top right) and change it to one that gets more features. For example, if you live in Canada, simply click on Canada in the top right, choose United States - English, and voilą. The only downside is that search results will not be tailored for your country of residence. Still, it's a great way to play around with features that you're currently missing out on.

With the upcoming expansion to more markets, background pictures specific to each country will eventually appear on Bing. With these new backgrounds, the hotspots feature will also appear, showing more information about the image.

Speaking of background images, the Bing Photo Contest on Facebook is something that photographers light like to check out. The theme is "summer travel," and the winner will have his or her photo set as the background image on the Bing homepage on August 3, 2009. Before you submit, make sure to read the photo guidelines as well as the rules.