Well, ok, maybe Matt Cutts of Google won’t be too excited about this, after all.  But Bing has just released a new “Bing Bar” anyway.

The new toolbar, available here, adds some nice new features, including Facebook integration, mail alerts, weather advisories, and if you’re in the US, a preview of Bing Rewards alerts.

Bing Director Stefan Weitz (edit: oops fixed spelling error, sorry Stefan!) talked with Bing Toolbar Program Manager Charlie French and they walk us through the new features of the Bing Bar in this video:

And yes, the Bing Bar does collect certain information about your use of your computer, so if you do many Google searches, you might make Matt Cutts mad.