online catalog

Microsoft has added images to its Bing search engine so search results now return images as well as text. Searches can also be started with preselected images at http://www.bing.com/visualsearch.

A search for "smartphones" produced more than 32 million results and clicking on the Images link produced 1,000 pictures so a phone could be selected by appearance rather than name. Scrolling over a phone image produces the image name and an option to show similar images. Caption details for the images can be turned on or off.

Amazon.com is setting the stage to take e-book readers to the next level. Lexcycle on Monday announced that it will be acquired by the e-commerce giant.

Lexcycle is a year-old company that makes the iPhone e-book application Stanza. It's a free application that works with the iPhone and the iPod touch and can be used to download a selection of more than 100,000 books and magazines. Lexcycle positions it as a wireless electronic library that stays open 24/7.

Video games in the cloud, without consoles. That's the vision of a new online video-game network introduced Tuesday by Rearden Studios at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Rearden's OnLive Game Service will launch later this year, and will allow subscribers to play games on Windows or Mac computers, or on TV sets, from an online catalog of new and classic games.

New Kind of Compression

While users can currently get content that is server-based, these games would be played directly from the servers.

Microsoft on Friday opened an online store for U.S. customers. The company already has online marketplaces in the United Kingdom, Germany and Korea.

The home page for the Microsoft Store features the Microsoft Xbox 360 hit Gears of War 2, but also offers various flavors of the Microsoft Office productivity suite. Microsoft also features the Zune and a small ad for Vista Ultimate.

A new era for mobile gaming began with the July 10 opening of the iPhone App store, an online catalog of programs for the new 3G iPhone from Apple. Consumers are able to browse, download, and install games onto their phones directly, without having to transfer them from a computer -- and without paying big airtime fees to operators. And thanks to the iPhone's slick hardware, gamers will benefit from high-definition graphics, tilt control, and a touchscreen interface.