Microsoft is launching a Bing update that includes enhancements to the search engine's "hover preview" feature and incorporates data from Wolfram Alpha, the "computational knowledge engine" launched this year by scientist Stephen Wolfram.

The company describes the refresh as the biggest update since the Bing launch in June. The features will also add more local results for weather and events, and an overhauled Bing Shopping site. A Microsoft representative said the features will be rolled out gradually and won't be fully available to everyone for several weeks.

The Wolfram Alpha integration is described in this post on the Bing blog -- showing how people will be able to use the feature to solve math functions or search for answers to data-intensive questions, such as which type of meat has more protein. Separately the improved hover preview feature in Bing will let people see a snapshot of the site or search within it from the Bing search results page, before they go to the site

Both features take Bing further along the line of being a destination unto itself, as opposed to merely directing traffic to other sites. Will be interesting to see how online publishers react, particularly if the Microsoft search engine starts to gain more traction.

On that front, researchers at Experian Hitwise released a report today showing Bing's market share rising from 8.96 percent to 9.57 percent of U.S. searches in October, while Google and Yahoo saw slight declines.