Google Meet, Duo updated with handy new features: Details here
What's the story
Given the growing demand for virtual meeting services, Google is racing to upgrade its video calling products and take on the likes of players like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
The company had already launched some useful features, and now, it is building on that effort with a bunch of new capabilities for both Google Duo and Google Meet.
Let's take a look at them.
Meet #1, #2
Tiled layout to see 16 participants, present tab ability
First of all, Google is tweaking the tiled layout of Meet to show up to 16 participants at a time, a major upgrade over the previous four-person limit.
Then, the company has introduced "Present a Chrome tab" option to let users share only a single tab - complete with audio/video - with Meet call participants, instead of their whole screen.
Meet #3, #4
Lighting upgrades, noise cancellation
Further, in order to improve the overall meeting experience of its users, Google has also announced a 'low-light' mode with noise cancellation capabilities.
The former uses AI to "make you more visible to other participants in sub-optimal lighting conditions", while the latter filters out background noise, like a dog barking or baby crying, to make sure everyone in the call hears you clearly.
Duo improvements
Google Duo, meanwhile, gets improved quality
As for Duo, Google is releasing an improved video codec technology, dubbed AV1, to significantly improve video call quality, even for those on low-bandwidth connections.
The company has also launched an option to take and share photos while being on call with friends and family and changed its policy to automatically save video messages that used to expire after 24 hours.
Plan
Finally, work going on to increase participant limit
Google has also confirmed that it is working to increase the participant limit for group calls on Duo.
The company has not revealed the planned participant limit, but we are pretty sure that users would certainly appreciate anything over the current 12-person limit.
Duo is reportedly seeing 10 million new users every week and an 800% surge in shared messages.