Microsoft is holding a private "bing news event" today in San Francisco where several Microsoft executives will demonstrate a new set of Bing features.
Kara Swisher from All things digital will be live blogging the event. The Microsoft executives attending include Harry Shum, Corporate VP of core search development; MSN Corporate VP Erik Jorgensen; and Brian MacDonald, corporate VP for Core Search Program Management.
Little is known about the event but according to the invite sent out by the Bing team - Microsoft "will showcase and demo several new Bing features". Microsoft has been working on Bing aggressively internally and developing new features regularly. "Bing Explorer" has been mentioned to Neowin several times by sources close to Windows Live and Bing. According to insiders a version 1 of Bing Explorer aims to seamlessly search and browse to find, re-find and discover. The application or web application (we are unsure) will also provide a simple & integrated search UX whilst providing unified data and UI across IE and Firefox.
Neowin understands that this event will be the full release of Bing 2.0 which was first demonstrated to internal employees in September. The update, named "Dublin" internally will include a number of new features which have been slowly rolled out to a small percentage of users. Microsoft began rolling out "Bing 2.0" features in early November. In recent weeks Microsoft announced a partnership with Wolfram Alpha to better answer question based search queries. Bing Video was also rolled out in early November alongside an updated version of Bing maps. There are a number of small features that are unannounced but we believe the Silverlight version of Bing Maps is on the list. Time will tell and Microsoft is planning the showcase at 10AM PST (see other time zones). Updates to follow.
Update: As we correctly predicted, Bing Maps Silverlight is now available. Click here for more information.