Cisco's Flip Camcorders Bite the Dust

Cisco announced that it will shut down the Flip video camera line as part of a restructuring of its consumer business. In addition to killing the Flip, Cisco will focus its umi video conferencing products on the enterprise, but will continue to sell home Internet routers in retail stores. For current FlipShare users, Cisco says it's working on a transition plan.

In 2009, Cisco bought Pure Digital, creator of the Flip, for $590 million in stock. The acquisition was part of Cisco's plan to capture what it thought was a growing field of video communication among consumers.

While Flip cameras have improved steadily over the last two years -- the latest Flip MinoHD and UltraHD added 60 frames per second video capture -- Cisco rarely experimented with the Flip's familiar candy bar shape. The one recent exception was the Flip SlideHD, a camera with a nice touchscreen but frustrating controls. The latest Flip cameras don't even include optical zoom, which is standard among digital cameras with video recording.

Cisco also swung and missed on FlipShare TV, a set-top box designed to let people watch their videos, along with videos from other Flip camera users, on a big screen through a dedicated online channel. It seemed a bit redundant in the age of YouTube and Facebook.

All the while, the threat of smartphones and iPods loomed. When Apple chief executive Steve Jobs introduced the fifth-generation iPod Nano with a video camera in 2009, he called out the Flip for offering just a single function at the same price as Apple's media player. The same is true for smartphones, and although Flip cameras offer better video quality, they don't match the storage capacity, location features and Internet connectivity of modern handsets.

Cisco foreshadowed the Flip's demise in February, when Jonathan Kaplan, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Consumer Products, resigned. Kaplan was chairman and chief executive of Pure Digital when Cisco acquired the company. Announcing Kaplan's resignation, Cisco said it was taking its consumer business "to the next level."

Apparently that means laying off 550 employees and discontinuing a once-proud line of digital video cameras.

Source : Cisco's Flip Camcorders Bite the Dust

Bing Closes Gap on Google's Search Engine Lead

Bing, Microsoft's little search engine that could, has taken 30 percent of the U.S. search market share, posing a serious threat to Google's dominance in the field.

According to Hitwise, Bing raked in 30.01 percent in March, with 14.32 percent of those searches coming from Bing.com and the remaining 15.69 percent from Yahoo Search, which Bing has been powering since August 2010. Bing got a 6 percent increase over February, and Yahoo a 5 percent boost, but Google saw its market lead decline, going from 66.69 percent to 64.42 percent.

Business Insider notes that Bing's 30 percent share is a symbolic number because that's what Yahoo had back in 2005, when Microsoft first launched Bing. August 2010 is also symbolic: at the time, Google was at 71.59 percent of the U.S. search market and has since then lost roughly 10 percent.

The likelihood of Bing blasting past Google anytime in the near future is low, but Mashable did a little math and discovered that if Google continues losing two to three percent per month, and Bing continues its trend of gaining five or six percent each month, Bing could overtake Google by 2012. Not bad for a search engine that was accused of stealing results from its competition.

Source : Bing Closes Gap on Google's Search Engine Lead

Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview

Whew, that was fast! In a breakneck browser race where development cycles are measured in weeks rather than months or years, there's no time to rest on your laurels. So it's not entirely surprising that Microsoft has already unveiled its Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview 1, a sneak peak at some of cool new tools in its upcoming version of IE.

Wait, didn't Redmond's just launch Internet Explorer 9? Yes, and critics have praised the browser's simpler interface, faster performance, full support for HTML5, enhanced security, and ability to use your PC's GPU to render graphics. But IE's competitors aren't sitting still, and there's no time to relax while other browsers march onward.

"We're about three weeks into development of IE10, and based on the progress we've made, we want to start engaging the development community now," writes Microsoft corporate vice president Dean Hachamovitch in a Tuesday post on the IEBlog. Also on Tuesday, Microsoft demoed IE10's browsing engine and other features at the MIX conference in Las Vegas.

As for Microsoft's competitors? Mozilla, fresh off its Firefox 4 launch, has announced plans to release Firefox 5 by June 21, and possibly Firefox 6 just two months later. Google, meanwhile, manages Chrome like the Winchester Mystery House: It's always under construction. The speedy Chrome 10 debuted in February, and Chrome 11 is already in beta.

What's New in IE10

Platform Preview 1, which you can download today, is the "next wave of progress" in IE's support of HTML5, writes Hachamovitch. The demo showcases emerging browser standards in action, including several CSS3 features such as multi-column layout, grid layout, flexible box layout, gradients, and 3D transforms.

The Flexin' demo below, for instance, demonstrates the layout capabilities of CSS3 Flexbox, which makes it easier to align, center, and control spaces between boxes on the page.

If you're a developer or a browser buff, you'll want to check out the Platform Preview for more details. Microsoft hasn't announced a release date for IE10, but given the crazy pace of the browser development, it can't be far off.

Source : Internet Explorer 10 Platform Preview