Zoom zoom.
Google has been playing with its Google Meet videoconferencing tool throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, even adding some of its enterprise level tools to free accounts, and upgrading the security of education users to prevent so-called ‘zoombombing’. They’ve even better integrated Meet into their broader ecosystem, with users able to start a call from within Gmail, and increasing the functionality of the chat.
Leaked slides from the company’s #GoogleCloudNext event (via Twitter user @tahins) indicate Meet will add features to change or blur your background, raise your hand, integrate attendance and polling, and even connect with the Jamboard app, a feature teachers, in particular, have requested.
These features are sure to put Zoom square in Google’s sights as many of them are lifted from that service’s popular webinar feature or already created by third party developers within Google’s app ecosystem.
It’s not clear when, or if, all of these features will be released, though Google has already started rolling out some of the features, even trialing them in an Alberta bank.