Bing search api foreign characters - bing

I have used the bing image search API for a project but there is a problem with foreign characters in the search. It is actually a problem with the whole bing search, for example if you search for "bolån" (mortgage in Swedish) then you get image results for the rock singer Bolan.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bol%C3%A5n&FORM=HDRSC2
My question is if anyone has had similar problems and if you have found a solution for this.

For images, there is a strong inclination to search for Rock singer's images for "bolan" term. You can try other term which is equivalent hus inteckning and you should get the correct results.

Related

Rich Snippet recipe image not appearing in search results

I am having a recipe blog for which the Google Rich Snippet testing tool returns a good testing result.
But in Google search I am not getting a thumbnail of the food. I have configured everything properly. For the last 2 weeks I am struggling to fix this.
Should I use the hRecipe format instead of http://schema.org/Recipe? Is schema.org included in Google recipes search?
I saw this post, it’s saying to use data-vocabulary.org instead of schema.org. Which one to use?
If the google rich snippet testing tool gives you a good result, I think you should wait until it comes to the search result page properly. I search for "sukhiyan preparation" and Google SERP gives me this
This link http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1093493 says sometimes it needs more than 1-2 months to make the rich snippet appears.

Bing Image Search API autocorrect feature...?

I am trying to use BING's image search api, but the problem is when I miss-spell something it automatically corrects the and doesn't tell me that "Hey we have auto-corrected your query!" , I want to know if my query has been auto corrected and what's the replacement word they have used.. Has anyone done this before...?
This is the query I am using.. note "Aemrica" has been mis-spelled deliberately but it still it gives me results for "America"
https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Data.ashx/Bing/Search/v1/Image?Query=%27Aemrica%27&$top=50&$format=JSON
but does not tell anything that the word has been replaced. Is there any way around it..?
i am using the response for iPhone.
No there is no way around this. Even the SearchResponse.Query.SearchTerms response parameter appears to still be the incorrectly spelt version.
I would suggest contacting Microsoft if this is a big issue for you.
EDIT: If you upgrade to the new Bing Search API based on the Azure marketplace, you can now get this data by first making a call to the SpellingSuggestions endpoint.

Is it possible to pass data needed for driving directions to the Bing Maps website?

I have an application that currently links to Google Maps passing it the required URL parameters needed to show driving directions for a set of points (typically 3+). This approach has worked and has allowed us to not use their API, which worked fine.
With Google, they made it pretty easy and clear by using parameters like "saddr" for the starting address, "to" for way points, and "daddr" for the destination. I could even pass in "pw" if I wanted to put the map into print mode. Simple, easy, works great!
I'm trying to determine if Bing Maps supports the same thing. I have been unable thus far to find any examples showing how this can be done, nor have I been able to easily decode the URL after creating my own driving directions using Bing Maps.
Again, I'd like to avoid using the API and am find with sending users to Bing's site when clicking my link.
It this possible? If yes, how can it be done?
Yes it is possible.
And I just wrote a little blog post to demonstrate how: http://alastaira.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/url-parameters-for-the-bing-maps-website/
Alastair's answer has full details if you follow the link through to the blog post.
But if you want the quick answer (again, thanks Alastair) use this root:
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?where1=
and stick your search destination in at the end. Eg. this gets you to Atwood Rd in London using its postcode:
http://www.bing.com/maps/default.aspx?where1=W6%200HX

google text search vs. metadata search

I'm very interested in search engines.
Today in a talk I heard that google performs a text search, while more complex engines could rely on the use of metadata, which is apparently not so used by google.
Which is the difference between text search and metadata search?
Could you provide some links where I can go deeper on this subject?
Metadata is 100% text.
The reason why Google doesn't use it is because people tend to lie about their content (not automatically on purpose.)
Now, what Google doesn't use is the Keywords meta data tag (although they may be checking it out to see whether you're a liar...) They do use the other meta tags.
I just wrote a long list of meta tags supported by many systems. I still need to add many more, but out of those that are there the og:image and description and some others are very useful.
http://snapwebsites.org/implementation/feature-requirements/layout-feature-core/meta-tags-and-links-supported-core

Searching an image for specified text

I think I am going to ask very stupid Question here. In my current project i want to give search feature. I have an big image tutorial with lot of information about on a topic and i want to search feature in the image. Suppose use type like "Apple" it will show the Apple occurred how many times in the image and after clicking on of that the image scroll and go to the position where "Apple" is occurred.
Thanks for reading my stupid question but if it is possible let me know and put some sample code??
Here is a broad overview of the approach I would take:
Find a C/C++ based OCR library
Get it to compile on the iPhone
Create a UI to feed images to the OCR library
Store output of OCR, including words found and their location in the image.
Create a UI to allow users to enter a search.
Search OCR output for matches and highlight the location of matches on the image.
I imagine step 2 is going to be the most difficult. Tesseract may work, it is C++ based but I don't know what dependencies it has.
UPDATE: Someone on GitHub has posted a demo iPhone App that uses Tesseract.
Please try to do use WebView or Core Text to render you tutorial, in which search functionality comes pretty much for free. Use OCR for search is just not practical for your need.