Microsoft's Kumo: already a step behind?
Once again, Microsoft is finding itself beaten to the punch in the search game. While it has been readying Kumo for its first public airing--probably at next week's D: All Things Digital event--Yahoo and Google have already shown off their latest search enhancements. Worse still, their demos show that Redmond's rivals are heading in some of the same directions as Microsoft itself.
According to screenshots that leaked out in March, Kumo's look focuses on a new left-hand navigation menu that breaks searches down into a number of related queries. The results themselves also feature information organized into categories.
For example, a search on "Audi" breaks things down into an initial result with facts such as price and fuel economy pulled out in bold, followed by general Web results, then results by category, such as Audi parts, used Audis, and Audi accessories.
