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Tap for HELP! is a Windows Phone 8 app designed to help you through non-emergency situations while on the road. Tap for HELP! uses your Windows Phone location services and Bing Search to find emergency services that are close to your current location.

Tap for HELP! categorizes everything across three pages, Emergency, On the Road and General.

Microsoft is getting feisty again with their Bing service as they’re taking the fight to Google with quite a snarky holiday ad released on YouTube.

With its "A Visit from St. Nicholas" style narration, the ad takes on Google’s practice of listing shopping results not so much based on lowest price or other reasonable metrics but rather who paid the most. As it turns out, some of the top results in Google are there because a company paid to have them there, as opposed to being what is best for the shopper. Or so that is what Microsoft alleges.

Left: the old Store search; Right, new Store search with developer lookup

Microsoft has been hard at work “doing things” to the Windows Phone store, which in theory will improve things (so far, all we’ve heard are developer complaints about delayed app publishing).

One of those areas is now coming forward although we have yet been able to verify in the US. WPArea.de has noticed that you can now search by the developer’s name in addition to their app. In a side by side with an HTC Mozart and a Lumia 800, they found the Mozart was able to get different search results when “Kik” was entered.

On the Mozart, Kik returned the developer house first, followed by the app whereas the Lumia 800 showed the more traditional KiK Messenger as the first.

Although the day is winding down, we’re still going through the leaked Windows Phone 8 SDK from early this morning. We’re finding some smaller nuggets which aren’t ‘wow’ worthy in of themselves but they are certainly worth a mention, especially since they do add some significant new features to the Windows Phone experience.

We must stress—these are still not the new ‘consumer’ features for Windows Phone 8 which Microsoft has yet to reveal. These are simply more tools for developers to give them more options and features for their apps. These APIs take a long time to write and document which is why SDKs take time to build before going public.

So what are some of these new options for devs?

• Background location-tracking for apps
• More refined search for apps in the Marketplace
• Custom contact store with cloud sync
• Media library access for devs
• Networking enhancements
• Right to Left (RTL) language support
• Media codec support and stats

Head past the break for some more details including snippets from the SDK itself…

Gydar Industries has been busy updating People Search for Windows Phone. The update bringing the Windows Phone app to v1.2 has been submitted to the Marketplace for distribution and v1.3 is already in the works.

For those not familiar, People Search is the result of Ronny Gydar (the man behind Gydar Industries) needing to find a simple way for his Mom to find and call contacts on her Windows Phone. Seeing the need for something fast and easy to use, Ronny developed People Search.  People Search is a feature rich contact search engine that is based off the T9 dial pad instead of the full QWERTY keyboard. Using the T9 dial pad speeds things up a little and makes one handed use a little easier as well.

Version 1.2 brings the following improvements and features into the mix.

• Improved search speed, Cyrillic search characters added
• Ability to share contacts with QR Tags
• Various adjustments and tweaks to improve overall performance and appearance

All in all, the version 1.2 update gives People Search a bit more zip and the internal QR generator makes sharing contact easy between Windows Phones, iPhone, or Android phones.

There is a free, 24-hour trial version of People Search available with the full version running $.99. You can find People Search here at the Windows Phone Marketplace. If you are already enjoying People Search, you should be seeing the notification for the update any time now.

Oh... and speaking of the next update, hit the break to catch what Gydar Industries has in store for version 1.3 of People Search.  Look for this update to hit the Marketplace in a few weeks.

Microsoft is set to close down the Bing 411 service on June 1st, 2012. Bing 411 is a toll-free number for American residents that enables callers to search using voice and Tellme technologies. The free service provides users with local business search, weather and traffic reports, driving directions, sports scores, and stock quotes to name but a few.

Should you attempt to use Bing 411 (1-800-246-4411) you'll be greeted by a message stating the service will cease operations on the provided date. This follows the closure of Google's GOOG-411 back in October, 2010. With Bing services integrating into Windows Phone, will we miss the Bing 411 service? 

Source: LiveSide

Yet another major app has landed for the Windows Phone Marketplace today. FatFingers.com is a well known website and service that specializes in finding misspelled items on eBay, which is a great way to bid on auctions that most people will miss when searching.

For instance, if a seller writes "Nokai" for "Nokia" this service will find just those items. In turn, you'll have a better chance of picking up that device or accessory at a lower cost, since others won't ever see it.

So if you're an eBay fiend, you'll want to go and grab the official FatFingers.com app for Windows Phone. The app has a free trial with some limited features while the full version, which fetches for $1.29 "for a limited time", has all sorts of goodies including:

• List of recent searches (2 for trial, unlimited for full)
• Save searches (2 for trial, unlimited for full)
• Group search results by category (Full version only)
• Pin search terms to Start menu (Full version only)
• Add item to your eBay Watch List (Full version only)

We just gave the app a spin and find it to be quite solid. There are a couple of UI issue we'd like to see e.g. add a search button (in addition to hitting enter) and maybe a pull more for item lists. But those are nits. The core of the app works very well and is a great tool for help finding deals on eBay.

We also really like how you can change eBay locales (UK is default, but you can change to any country to search) and how you can 1-tap add found items to your eBay Watch List (you'll need to associate your eBay account with FatFingers.com during a one-time setup).

Overall, a solid app and we're glad to see it on Windows Phone. Pick up the trial here on the Marketplace.

Google has just published a new post on the official mobile blog detailing a redesigned Google Search app that is available on the Marketplace, which sports the following features:

• Google Autocomplete: As you type in your search, our autocomplete feature offers search predictions that often match your intended search term making search entry easier and faster.
• Voice Search: With our voice feature, you can avoid typing all together. Simply press the microphone and begin speaking your query.
• My Location: With your permission, Google can use your device location to provide nearby results easily and accurately. For instance, a search for “coffee shops” quickly displays the nearest places you can go to for a cup of coffee.

This is available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German. Although it appears the app is only available in the U.S. You can download the Google Search app from the Marketplace.

Source: Google

Here's something that you can't do on Windows Phone: search your calendar for past, current or future events.

Seems an odd omission, yet we'll chalk it up to the "we're too busy to add it in" pile along with the ability to add new contacts from Bing search. Speaking of, the developer who made Add to Contacts (and who also makes "I'm a WP7!") has a new app out that fixes that whole inability to search your Calendar events and it's straightforwardly called Calendar Search:

"Although your Windows Phone can connect and synchronize with all types of calendars, it’s impossible to search and take action on calendar meetings, appointments and events.

With Calendar Search, you can unlock the power of calendar searching, and search your meetings, event, and appointments, by date ranges, keywords, even specific accounts, and take action on this powerful information!"

We've been using it for the last few hours and it does what it says, no frills. In that sense, if you need this functionality and can't wait for Microsoft, the $0.99 for the app is well worth it. There's a free trial too and you can give it a go here in the Marketplace.