Bing (in the US) has released a significant change to its homepage design today as the homepage image is no longer a static photo but instead it’s a HTML5 video. This functionality was first demoed well over a year ago in conjunction with the beta release of Internet Explorer 9. If users don’t have a HTML5 browser then they will continue to see the static picture that people are used to on Bing.
Obviously a photo of the new feature doesn’t do it justice but you can see that in the bottom right hand corner there is a new Metro UI icon allowing the user to pause the video. Thankfully Bing has provided a video about the new video homepage.
It appears that the video is the last thing on the page to be loaded so it doesn’t slow down the process of searching with Bing, which is a welcome way of showing a video on Bing. Microsoft has said that it wont always use a video on the homepage and will continue to use photos.
Over the past month Bing has received several tweaks and updates such as a refined homepage and Metro UI icons to control the homepage image (or now video). A tablet version of Bing was also spotted for BUILD but Microsoft never mentioned this version of Bing.
I would hope that more HTML5 features will be rolled out over the coming weeks seeing as Bing has received so many updates in the past few weeks. Expect this new video homepage to roll out internationally over the coming months.
