TNW Quick Hit: Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, managed to break the 14% market share level in the United States in April according tonew data from comScore. During the month, Bing accounted for 14.1% of the US search market, up 0.2% from March’s numbers. Yahoo’s search market share, which is powered by Bing technology, also edged up 0.2% to account for some 15.9% of the US market for the month. Combined, that gives Bing search technology a stunning 30% of the market, mirroring what competing analytics service Hitwise said that Bingaccomplished in March....

Today Bingannounced a new, albeit minor feature that has the potential to save its users seconds per search across a variety of queries. The feature itself is somewhat simple, but what it implies is interesting. Dubbed ‘Action Buttons,’ alongside queries for seven genres of search term (airlines, couriers, restaurants, banks, rental cars, software downloads, and hotels), new links have been placed to guide the user to the page that they want directly, instead of the homepage of the website in question....

Bing has released anew image search homepagetoday that is designed to make the search engine feelmore colorful and engaging. While certain users will find it distracting, on the whole it is a nice addition and element of differentiation for Bing that it can use to draw more distinction between itself and Google. Thenew page is live nowin the US only. Bing’s new search portal design features 20 square tiled images that represent a “snap-shot of some of the most popular image searches on Bing....

The never-ending innovation war between Bing and Google in the search space took an interesting turn this afternoon as Bing brought to life a new feature for its shopping tool thatsupports some natural language inputsto assist searchers find products at specific price levels. Microsoft claims that the capability will “help shoppers find results within their budget.” The tool allows users to search for “laptops under $600,” or anything along similar lines, which will prompt Bing Shopping to only serve results that match the price constraint....

Bing is not taking thelatest verbal salvo from Googlein the search war sitting down, but has instead releasedyet another postto swing right back with a haymaker. If you recall, Google iscalling down Bing on copying Google results, something that Bing has vehemently denied. The latest Bing post is called “Setting the record straight,” and does not mince its words. We are going to paste the text of the post below with the most important points bolded for anyone who just wants to skim the post....