Need another place to see Facebook notifications? Get Bing Desktop

Need yet another place to see your Facebook notifications? Get Bing Desktop
Take a trip on the social boat with Bing Desktop

Microsoft has revamped its Bing Desktop application, to bring Facebook notifications into the mix, along with some other relatively newsworthy changes.

The app, which brought Facebook integration by displaying friends' posts and statuses earlier this year, will now serve up a red flag next to the 'F' icon whenever the user receives a notification.

Beyond that, there's also a neat inline search feature which allows users to highlight phrases in documents and click the Bing icon to perform a quick web search.

"Ever been reading an article and wanted to get more information about a topic or phrase?" the company wrote in a blog post.

"We know how lots of people deal with this: copy the text, launch a browser and paste the words into the search box. With Inline Search, now all you have to do is highlight what you want to search, hit the Bing icon and you will see a preview of search results in a convenient window without ever leaving what you were doing."

New news, same bad weather

The app has also overhauled its News section, allowing users more control over the categories of story they see, while there's also a picture-based 'trending topics' section.

Lastly there's a new real-time weather app, which the company says (not unlike other weather services) should help you decide whether to pack an umbrella.

Chris Smith

A technology journalist, writer and videographer of many magazines and websites including T3, Gadget Magazine and TechRadar.com. He specializes in applications for smartphones, tablets and handheld devices, with bylines also at The Guardian, WIRED, Trusted Reviews and Wareable. Chris is also the podcast host for The Liverpool Way. As well as tech and football, Chris is a pop-punk fan and enjoys the art of wrasslin'.