Microsoft's Bing: Life-Saver, or Big Brother?

Reviewers say Microsoft's new Bing search engine—still not officially released—is great for shopping and answering tricky questions. It's also Big Brother in disguise:

• "There's much to like," writes Mike Elgan in PC World, except Bing's top search matches—chosen by Microsoft, not popularity rankings. "It's always easy to have someone else choose your values and make your decisions. But is that good for society?"

• Michael Muchmore embraces Bing's inner Big Brother in PC Magazine. The search engine's design digs up sites you can trust, he says—perfect for crucial health questions.
• On CNET, Rafe Needleman praises Bing's formatting of movie listings, weather, travel, and product reviews. He also likes the text pop-ups that appear when the cursor hovers over search titles.
• "There’s a glimmer of something better than a search engine" in Bing, writes Ryan Singel on Wired—namely, great restaurant and airline searches. But he calls the interface confusing and local searches "not very interesting."

(More Microsoft stories.)