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Bing now knows a lot more about cars and will also give a select group of users the option to compare the performance of different sports teams. Microsoft just announced these updates at the Search Engine Strategies event in New York. The new comparison answers for sports will be rolled out to only about 5% of Bing's users at first. In addition, Microsoft will also begin to roll out some minor design changes to a small group of users today that will better highlight Bing's assets like weather and travel search.

Microsoft just launched a new version of its Bing iPhone app. The iPhone app gives you comprehensive access to Bing's core services, including Bing maps and directions, as well as news and image search. Besides offering better stability and a few interface tweaks, the new version of the Bing app also integrates more tightly with the iPhone by giving you access to your contacts in the mapping feature and making it easier to copy and paste URLs and share interesting results through email.

As we've seen from some of the previews of the new layout, search is becoming more of a focal point for Facebook, and today's announcement seems to back that up. Microsoft and Facebook announced this morning an expanded partnership, making Bing the default search engine for Facebook's more than 400 million users worldwide.

The two companies also came to a "mutual decision" to allow Facebook to take over sole responsibility for advertisements on the social network, a move that we see as part of Facebook's continual progression toward becoming an ad provider.

Microsoft just updated Bing's mobile interface. The new interface features tabs and is optimized for high-resolution touch-screen devices like the iPhone or Microsoft's own Zune HD. The earlier version of Bing Mobile worked reasonably well, but the interface was rather generic. The new version, on the other hand, makes good use of the iPhone's touch screen when searching for movies, for example. Bing now shows a list of movie posters that you can scroll through with a sideways swipe.