But this time his goal isn’t providing hardware to help general consumers create and share videos. Rather, it’s providing software to help teachers produce effective video lessons and students discover and learn from them.

Launched with former Flip marketing executive Scott Kabat, Knowmia, a platform for teacher-created video lessons, is part of startup accelerator Y Combinator’s latest class. The two cofounders will present at Y Combinator‘s demo day next week but took the wraps off their site Tuesday.

After the Cisco acquisition, Braunstein said, he had a chance to really think about what he wanted his next step to be.

“As a father myself, as somebody who comes from a great experience with video, I was asking myself, ‘how can I use my experience to… affect people’s lives in a very positive way but in a different field?’” he said. “I found myself drawn to education.”

Even though he isn’t an educator by training, he said he felt compelled to attempt to solve some of the problems he perceived. So he spent five months interviewing teachers, parents and students to figure out where his expertise could make the biggest impact and came up with the idea for Knowmia.

“We want to democratize access to the best teachers in every field,” he said.

Teachers review, provide notes on 7,000 videos in library

At launch, the site includes about 7,000 videos in a broad range of subject areas, from geometry and algebra to chemistry and physics to world history and American literature. The videos, which are about one to ten minutes long, have been mostly culled from YouTube and Vimeo and then reviewed by teachers working with Knowmia to provide editorial notes, create relevant quizzes and tag content according to subject, topic and skill.

Going forward, Knowmia will encourage teachers, as well as public and nonprofit groups, to add more videos. As the site grows, the plan is that the initial videos and tags will provide the foundation for additional notes and teacher-provided tags, which help teachers and students discover content.

The idea is that if students (mostly high school, for now) need extra help in a certain subject, say algebra, they can just go to the site, search for “quadratic equation” and instantly choose from a handful of short videos on the topic.

“At the end of the day, it’s a consumer website — for students and parents,” said Kabat. “The things they value most are variety of content, so they can find the teachers they like, and organizational tools, so they can discover what they need and measure whether the child has learned it.”

The founders said the video content will always be free but, in the future, they intend to charge for additional products, such as mini-courses, which are sets of lessons curated by teachers on Knowmia’s Editorial Board and sourced by videos in the site’s library. In addition to the content, the courses include teacher comments and quizzes to assess progress. Knowmia isn’t selling teachers’ individual lessons, but teachers whose content is included in Knowmia’s premium services will receive compensation, Braunstein said. The company declined to elaborate on pricing for its additional services and teacher compensation. The founders also said Knowmia is self- and seed-funded, but did not share how much it’s raised and from whom.

iPad app helps teachers animate, illustrate video lessons

In addition to the platform itself, the company has released the Knowmia Teach iPad app, which Braunstein described as an “iMovie for teachers.” To help teachers illustrate concepts and demonstrate techniques in their videos (or even in class), the app lets teachers mark up a periodic table or manipulate a water molecule.

Sites like the TeachingChannel and TeacherTube, in addition to YouTube and Vimeo, already provide teachers and students with an ample supply of video lessons. But, as Sal Khan’s popular online lessons have shown, there is an appetite for video instruction. And Knowmia’s focus on providing curation and structure, as well as sophisticated tools for teachers, will help distinguish it from other online platforms.

Depending on how much Knowmia charges for its mini-courses, I wonder if parents will think that their money is better spent on an actual tutor instead of a video course, especially given new startups like InstaEDU and Tutorspree, which make it easier and potentially cheaper to get live help in real-time. But at the right price, parents might find that it’s a compelling alternative to live support. The free content, which is better curated than YouTube, could not only provide students who are falling behind with supplementary material, but give high-performing students a way to preview a challenging upcoming course. The founders also said a priority is using the content to help students figure out what they don’t know, which is an interesting and valuable service.

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The Style

Credit where credit’s due, the AP designers got it right. The updated apps offer a pretty, collage-like interface that is somewhat akin to Facebook’s timeline, and the navigation is quick and intuitive. The white on grey text is easy to read and slide bars let users customize the font and headline size.

AP has bet big on visual so there are pictures everywhere on both the iPhone and iPad versions (the app will be available on other platforms later this year). The pictures look terrific with sports and entertainment stories but, as others have noted, the photos can feel busy on the smaller screen.

The interface makes it easy to quickly add or drop sections like “lifestyle” or “wacky,” and users can customize the “local” tab to include a list of different regions. Ads appear at the bottom of the screen from time to time but they are not obtrusive.

Best of all, the app loads like lightning which makes it ideal for news junkies looking for a fix on the subway or in a Starbucks (NSDQ: SBUX) line.

The Substance

This is the AP so news comes by the bucket with frequent updates. The revised apps also include a new “Big Story” feature that chains together items on topics like “2012 Presidential Race” and “March Madness.” So far, there are only four “big stories” but editors say they will add and remove topics in response to breaking news items.

As with the app’s earlier iterations, the AP’s broad reach makes it a good one-stop shop for everything from sports to politics. Major breaking stories are announced via a streaming red banner across the top of the screen.

The most intriguing feature, though, may be the apps’ extensive local coverage. Users can add different regions and toggle between them on the local tab, meaning it’s possible to quickly keep track of what’s going on in Boston and Boise. Except for New York City which is fed by AP, the local coverage is culled from regional papers like the San Jose Mercury News and the Casper Star Tribune and curated by local editors. In some small areas, the process appears to be still under construction; some papers display a “no content available” message.

The Strategy

The new apps are good-looking and ambitious but there is still the question of how they will help the AP and its clients make money. Even if the product is good, it must still stand out against mobile offerings from rival news organizations and from personal aggregators like Flipboard and Zite.

Like its precursors, the new iOS apps are free although SVP for Digital Products, Jim Kennedy, says the AP is considering charging for deep content or adding in-app payment options in the future. For now, Kennedy says the AP is focused on executing a shift to comprehensive real time news on mobile — which is what he says is the future of news.

The deeper collection of local news is a boon for consumers but also raises the question of cannibalization. If users can read the Idaho Statesman through an AP app, will they still go to the Statesman itself? Kennedy says the AP’s local offerings are not a substitute but a “great complement to local apps.” He adds that the AP apps provide local publishers “additional shelf-space and inventory.”

As for the AP itself, Kennedy says that once the mobile service reaches profitability, it will be in a position to share revenue with partners. The association says that, overall, its apps have been downloaded more than 11 million times, including 3.5 million downloads to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) products.

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The move sent the stock up, as Wall Street apparently felt comfortable with where Cisco has ended up after layoffs and cutting 10 business lines, including the Flip camera division and the Eos media software division.

A successful and quick restructuring is a positive for the networking giant, but there are some cautionary notes around Cisco’s gross margins. Mark Sue with RBC Capital Markets wrote in an analyst note that Cisco said its gross margins, which have decreased from the 70 percent range to about 65 percent, will stop falling at between 62 and 60 percent. That’s not great, but it could get ugly, as Nikos Theodosopoulos, an analyst with UBS, noted. From the UBS research note:

A key risk to Cisco’s long-term GM may be Switch assumptions. Cisco expects Switch [margins] to remain above avg, which may depend on price/competitive actions by Huawei, HP, Dell, Juniper, Brocade and others. All in, we think Cisco’s position is strong, and JNPR may be most vulnerable to Cisco competitive actions near-term.

So there you have it: the good, the bad and the ugly of Cisco’s lowered growth estimates. If Cisco can focus on its core businesses, perhaps the ugly scenario doesn’t play out and it can indeed keep gross margins in the respectable 60 percent range. Investors can mourn the loss of high growth from the network giant, but slow growth is better than no growth, especially if it can keep those margins.

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First, the product news: Cisco is expanding the ASR 9000 series with the new ASR 9922 edge router and the ASR 9000v, which sits in the network aggregation layer. The new products, along with all other ASR 9000 products, will add Cisco nV (network virtualization) technology, which allows ISPs to manage all network operations from a single interface. The introduction of those products and the new virtualization tech also will help boost overall capacity in the network, to 96 Tbps.

That kind of capacity will soon become necessary, as Cisco’s own VNI research forecasts global Internet traffic will quadruple by 2015. That increase will be driven primarily by video, which is expected to grow to 62 percent of global Internet traffic in five years. With 96 Tbps of capacity, Cisco says the ASR 9000 family has the ability to enable networks to transmit the equivalent of 180,000 DVDs every minute.

The number of connected devices is also expected to grow to 15 billion, which will necessitate new ways to manage networks. As Om reported earlier this year, the growing number of connected devices is putting a strain on networks, which need to become more flexible and dynamic. Cisco is trying to provide that flexibility through its network virtualization technology, which will help operators to quickly deploy IPv6 services necessary to reach multiple devices.

The technology also simplifies the design and management of those networks with a unified control system. That means any ASR 9000 network operator can manage all edge, aggregation and access points in one place. Providing unified network management also comes with significant cost savings: Cisco claims that its equipment adds 70 percent opex savings over the competition, which would enable the system to essentially pay for itself in just one year.

According to Cisco, the ASR 9000v product is available now, with the ASR 9922 becoming available early next year. But existing customers won’t have to deploy all new gear to take advantage of Cisco’s new virtualization technology. Cisco says the 500 operators who have already bought ASR 9000 gear will be able to introduce the intelligence with a simple upgrade.

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The spring cleaning continues for Cisco Systems. We’re hearing rumors that the San Jose, Calif.-based company is shutting down its Eos social publishing platform as part of its ongoing restructuring.

Indeed, the Eos closure has been an open secret for several weeks now, since the April 12th resignation of the department’s head Dan Scheinman. Scheinman told me in an interview today that while he’s proud of what Eos achieved technically, “the economics weren’t what we wanted, given Cisco’s larger situation.”

Cisco has yet to definitively confirm the closure, other than to say it’s “evaluating other market opportunities” for Eos and its technology. As of press time, the Eos website is still up and running, although the product’s Twitter page has been deleted.

Eos was aimed at helping media and entertainment companies to create websites and social networking features. The platform, which counted Warner Music Group as a major customer, was born out of Cisco’s 2007 acquisition of white-label social networking startup Five Across.

While Eos was by all accounts a very cool service, shuttering it is a smart move from a corporate strategy perspective. As evidence by the closure last month of its Flip business unit, the cool factor is no longer enough to keep a product in Cisco’s good graces. Cisco currently has all hands on deck in an effort to regain an edge in its core networking business, and non-core products such as Eos and Flip are some of the most obvious assets that need to be dumped.

No word yet on whether Cisco will sell off the Eos assets or just shut down the unit. We’ve reached out to the company for confirmation on the closure and more details, and will update this post when we receive a response.

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The first thing you’ll notice is that the iPad 2′s colors seem more crisp, and the overall recording is brighter, whereas the Galaxy 10.1 seems darker and a little more washed out. The contrast is so big that sometimes it actually feels like you’re watching two different scenes. Take the cab passing by a minute into the video, for example: The iPad shows it being bright red, while the Galaxy 10.1 captured it in washed-out orange. It looks like the iPad 2 has the upper hand here.

However, there are a number of instances when the iPad 2 struggles with bright spots, leading to solarizing effects that make it look like the camera’s chip simply stumbled. White markings on the street seem to be particularly challenging for the iPad, as you can see about 14 seconds in. Around 0:22, the entire street starts to flash like an ’80s dance video. The Galaxy 10.1 didn’t have any similar issues, so mark this as a win for Samsung.

Bright recording situations continue to challenge the iPad 2 once I take the two devices inside our building. When panning from a low-lit area straight to the window, the Galaxy 10.1 still looks pretty dark, but it manages to hold the picture. The iPad 2, on the other hand, produces more solarizing flashes and is blinded by the outside light, incapable of adequately recording any of the people passing outside the window by at around 1:48.

The Galaxy 10.1 also seems to do better in our dark office elevator, and it again has the upper hand once the doors to our office open around 2:10. It’s immediately able to capture what’s going on inside, whereas the iPad 2 has a notable fade from bright white to adjust to the new light conditions.

To sum up, iPad 2′s video may look better under optimal conditions, but the Galaxy 10.1 seems more reliable during abrupt changes in lighting. The flare-ups of the iPad 2 are particularly concerning, and kind of make you wonder whether iPad 2 owners should always carry a backup Flip camera, just in case.

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The deadline to remove videos comes as Cisco is in the midst of reorganizing, shuttering consumer-facing businesses and returning its focus to the enterprise networking segment. The Flip video camera business was just one unit that fell victim to the cuts, as Cisco announced it would shut down the popular consumer video camera manufacturer last month.

Even though Cisco is hastily moving to wind down the business, 30 days isn’t a very long time for consumers to move files from a service like this. Last month, for instance, Google announced it would finally be shutting down its Google Video site to focus on its wildly more popular YouTube service. On April 13, the search giant announced that it would end playback of Google Video files by the end of the month, and gave users 30 days to manually download those files. But despite Google Video lying mostly dormant for several years, users protested the sudden shutdown. Google eventually backpedaled, eliminating the April 29 shutdown date and urging users to transfer their files to YouTube instead.

One of the key advantages of the FlipShare service was semi-private sharing of videos; users that uploaded to FlipShare primarily did so because they could share within a small group of friends and family without posting them for all the world to see. For users that still want their files hosted on the web but don’t necessarily want them viewable by everyone, YouTube offers private viewing controls so that videos can go unlisted on the main site, or will only be available with those who have a shareable link. Shutterfly  and Vimeo  also enable viewers to upload videos and privately share them.

While users will have just 30 days to download files from the FlipShare website, Cisco will continue to support the Flip camera hardware and software for another 18 months. On the Flip website, the company reports it will continue to offer technical support for Flip cameras until Dec. 31, 2013, and the cameras themselves will continue to be available while supplies last. It also said that the FlipShare software will continue to be supported until the end of 2013 as well.

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Last week, Cisco made waves by announcing the closure of its recently-acquired Flip mobile video camera brand. The Flip brought cheap, portable, decent-quality, HD video recording to the masses and rode the wave of YouTube and online self-video publishing to become a popular portable device. But then smartphones, including the iPhone 4, gained similar-quality, HD video recording capabilities, and the Flip was no longer the hot commodity it once was.

The iPhone topped Flickr’s list of user cameras in 2009 following the release of the iPhone 3GS, and that was back when the best iPhone camera boasted only a 3.2-megapixel resolution. The iPhone 4 has a 5-megapixel sensor, but leaving aside tech specs, many agree that it performs better (on paper) than some of the more powerful cameras found on Android and other devices. The iPhone’s camera is another example of Apple’s philosophy that user experience trumps a hardware capabilities arms race every time.

This time, though, the data specifies the iPhone 4, not Apple’s entire line of iPhone devices, which speaks to the popularity of Apple’s latest smartphone. It’s also significant that this time around, Flickr-released data shows point-and-shoot cameras are steadily declining in popularity. The takeaway is that smartphones are nearing the tipping point in terms of camera quality when it comes to the needs of most average users (professional and prosumer DSLRs continue to do well), and the iPhone 4 is leading that charge. Phones provide a much more convenient on-hand camera experience than do dedicated devices, and the trade-offs in terms of quality and feature are becoming less significant all the time.

Android devices, despite the growing market share of Google’s OS, aren’t appearing in the top rankings for a couple of reasons. First, Android’s market share is far more spread out across a variety of devices, whereas new iPhone users have only a couple of choices when it comes to handsets. Second, Apple’s camera is still celebrated as being among the best available for mobile devices, despite its relatively low megapixel count.

Based on this data, and on general usage observations, I’d say the iPhone is about one or two updates away from rendering point-and-shoot cameras all but obsolete for most consumers. It’s true that really good analog zoom will likely remain out of reach for smartphones, but consumers who really want those features will increasingly gravitate towards the prosumer end of the DSLR spectrum, while everyone else will be well served with their mobiles. Expect a lot of disruption still to come from Apple in this area.

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It appears as if the analyst are convinced that convergence is king, and smartphones are the future. Looking at Apple, it appears as if this trend is being realized as their once miraculous army of hundreds of millions of iPods has quickly transitioned into their now better equipped army of one-hundred million iPhones. With internet connectivity, GPS, camera, video, music and voice, it certainly is the very model of convergence. But the developer in me sees the very concrete issue of battery life becoming more of a concern with each and every feature being added into apps. Making every app in the App Store socially-connected and location-aware is making getting through the day without reaching for my external backup battery iPhone charger more and more difficult.

So while analysts continue to convince investors that standalone, single purpose consumer electronic devices are not the way to go, I can’t help but think that this will only add to the number of additional chargers I will need to carry around on my technology utility belt. If I will have to carry around an additional piece of tech anyway, why not have it serve a dedicated purpose? Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I still carry around my GPS Data Logger, iPod nano, Flip Video Camera, iPhone 4 and JustMobile Gum charger. Perhaps if Cisco made its Flip video camera a smartphone charger as well, it would have a place in this future dominated by convergence.

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“What was good for Flip and the Flip team is not the same for Cisco’s shareholders,” he observed, declining to speculate on why Cisco changed its attitudes towards the consumer. When asked to explain why Cisco killed the Flip, he pointed out that it was part of Cisco’s overall strategy but he couldn’t comment on why Cisco had done it, since he no longer worked for the company. Kaplan said that the Flip brand is still very strong, and he has received thousands of emails from Flip owners wondering about Flip’s future.

Kaplan said he doesn’t know, but at the same time he said that he doesn’t believe that the smartphone is killing the Flip. “Cellphones will take high quality photos and videos but they are a different use case and billions of dollars can be generated in revenues from single purpose devices,” he added. They are both different use-case scenarios.

Hoever, from my perspective, in order for a device to thrive in today’s crowded marketplace it needs to have connectivity — that connection drives engagement and with it, attachment to the device. Any device that can in turn take that engagement and establish itself as a platform can reap many millions in profits.  I outlined this theory in my post last month.

And that was perhaps the most glaring shortcoming of the Flip, an affordable, iconic video recorder that was such a rage that Cisco Systems paid $590 million for Pure Digital, the company behind the Flip.

When I asked Kaplan about the lack-of-connectivity being a problem, he disagreed. “We are San Francisco-based consumers and as a result we are a few years ahead of the market,” he said. But that’s a minority share of the overall market. In five years, he agreed most devices would have a connection to the network, but for now there remains a huge demand for single-purpose devices, especially the Flip.

Kaplan, left Cisco two months ago and is currently working on a new start-up that is around the concept of “memories.” He declined to share any details and he also declined to comment on any questions about him buying back Flip from Cisco. It would be cool, if he did – I still love my Flip.

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