Here be dragons.
A host of new features come to Google Meet users on mobile this week including filters that turn you into dragons, monsters, and astronauts. The feature rollout was announced on Twitter with a short video segment highlighting the tools.
The AR gadgetry is only available on the mobile app and is restricted to personal accounts. That means students wanting to wreak havoc on a classroom will have to rely on more traditional methods; lawyers, meanwhile, shouldn’t worry about accidentally taking cat form in court appearances, so long as they are using an enterprise account.
Among the options are full face replacements ala the dragon, cat, and dog masks, as well as face wraps including a skiing penguin and a submariner riding a dolphin. Fireflies can flit about, an octopus can attach to one’s skull, and a DBZ-like scouter can even be ‘worn’.
The designs should look familiar to Google’s other video messaging platform, Duo, as they were first introduced on that platform as the COVID-19 pandemic’s first wave crashed into North America. Given Google’s history of introducing services and then shuttering them, it’s likely this is a sign that Meet will fully replace Duo.
IMAGES: Evan McIntosh, Liftoff!
TOP IMAGE: Google