Microsoft’s Bing Spotlight breaks down news stories for lazy readers

Arif Bacchus

Bing.com

In a time where fake news it taking over the feeds of Facebook and other social media websites across, it is even more important to stay informed on top of what is true news and not. That’s why Bing is now making it easier to understand the most current news topics when you search for a specific news event or story on the search engine.

The name of this feature is Spotlight, and it shows users the latest headlines, a peek at how the story has developed over time, and also social media posts from around the web. Spotlight also gives users a diverse look at any given topic, so you can choose your own sources to learn more about the story.  There’s a specific algorithm that determines which articles make it to the Spotlight page, as the team explains:

Bing monitors millions of queries and news articles every day and identifies impactful stories that evolve over a period of weeks or months. We look at various user signals such as queries and browser logs, and document signals from publishers such as how many publishers cover a story, their angles, and how prominently they feature the story on their site. For controversial topics, in the Perspectives module, we show different viewpoints from high-quality sources.

A look at Bing Spotlight

This Spotlight feature is currently available on Bing and mobile here in the US. You can get started with it right now by clicking on the homepage carousel on Bing.com, and or search for major topics like self-driving cars.