Microsoft has unveiled a snazzy new feature on its Bing search service: an “Entertainment” tool that let’s you actually play music and TV episodes natively, right there from Bing’s page. It’s really cool. Here’s a Honky Tonk TV look at Bing. Check it out HERE.

Search engine feature upgrades are nothing new. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft do them all the time. They usually run beta tests that become the subject of widespread critiques months in advance of official release. But Microsoft has kept this one tightly under wraps for months.

“Usually we go deep on new features well in advance of the release,” says Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s senior vice president of online audience business. “We’ll see how people decide to review this one as we go forward.”

Users can try out the new Bing entertainment tool by clicking here. Under the tabs for “music,” “TV,” and “games,” Microsoft has aggregated a mind-boggling array of choices made possible by dozens of partnerships with many of the biggest entertainment corporations. For instance, you watch any of 20,000 full TV episodes from 1,500 different TV shows, new and old, contributed by Hulu, CBS and Viacom.

Microsoft may be intending to use Bing’s new Entertainment tool “as a loss-leader to get people to use Bing,” says Lee. “It might just drive millions of consumers to try Bing enough times that they will stick with it,” says Lee. “However, Microsoft should learn from Yahoo’s past mistakes with custom content.”

Users can try out the new Bing entertainment tool by clicking HERE.

Bing just upped its effort in the search engine war against Google with an updated iPhone app. Just in time for iOS4′s firmware update, the app has a bunch of tweaks, but one, real Google-beater: Barcode scanning for quick product IDs.

According to a source via Silicon Alley Insider claims, that Google pays Apple $100 million dollars a year to be the default search engine for the iPhone.

For Apple, that’s not a lot of money. For me that is a lot of money. If Apple wanted more money or options, there’s always Microsoft’s Bing and a big checkbook.