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Microsoft has now unveiled its widely anticipated search engine which it hopes will steal a significant share of traffic from rival Google.

has been designed to help people find information quickly, by using tabbed browsing for categories such as shopping, travel, news, maps, video and images.

The Bing homepage will feature a new daily image and information hotspots embedded in that image.

In search results, users will be able to see a short preview of a video without having to navigate away from the page, while  they will also be presented with a ‘best match' and ‘instant result', which will provide the requested information within the results page.

The service will roll out in beta mode in the UK over the next week, in a challenge to Google's dominance of the search market. According to Hitwise Google handled 91.21 per cent of UK searches last month, compared to Microsoft's 0.92 per cent.

Microsoft said the engine has been designed to combat the high number of users who abandon search queries without reaching a satisfactory result.

But, speaking to Revolution, Cedric Chambaz, Microsoft Advertising's marketing manager, said that the aim is to tailor Bing for the UK market before widely promoting it.

"It needs to be a few months more in beta experience so that it can be further tailored for the UK," he said, before saying that even Autumn may not be the right time to launch the marketing drive.

"We think we're answering a need for a more engaging and less frustrating search experience and are aiming to bring the most relevant search engine for Britain," he continued.

According to comScore up to 30 per cent  of searches across all search engines are abandoned without a satisfactory result and approximately two-thirds of the remaining searches require a refinement, re-query or click back to the search results page.

Microsoft has also integrated online shopping site Ciao, which it bought in October last year, into Bing and the MSN shopping portal as a new shopping facility, which will launch next week.

The software giant said search is still in its infancy and the public should expect more from search engines.

The US launch of Bing, which is not in beta, is being supported by a $100m advertising campaign, which challenges the public not to settle for the service they get from other engines, although it does not go as far as naming Google and Yahoo!.