At the Internet Explorer 9 Beta launch event, Bing debuted an array of new HTML5 features, including moving backgrounds, hovering windows and search results that move with you as you scroll.
The search engine took the stage in order to demonstrate IE9’s new HTML5 capabilities, but also announced that Bing will start integrating deep HTML5 features next month in the form of a preview.
The Bing team first showed off moving backgrounds on the Bing homepage. The search engine is known for its daily front-page photography, but in a month that photo of a beach could suddenly come to life, waves and all. You will also soon be able to zoom out of pictures for a more expansive view.
Beyond the cosmetic changes though, Bing will also be using HTML5 to enhance its search engine results page. For example, the top navigation (Images, News, etc.) will remain at the top of your browser screen even while you scroll through search results. In addition, search engine results will stick to the top of the screen until you scroll into the next one; it’s a cool effect that saves screen real estate.
Finally, Bing is bringing HTML5 to images to create some nifty slideshows. You can use Bing to automatically generate slideshows from your search queries.
While we expect these features to work with any HTML5-compatible browser, we expect this experience to be optimized for IE9, so you may not get all of that hardware-accelerated goodness in your Chrome or Safari browser. One thing Microsoft doesn’t seem to be worried about right now, though, is making Bing’s search results instantaneous.
Reviews: Bing, Chrome, Safari, news
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