Showing posts with label hangouts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hangouts. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2015
Google Unveils Real Time Feedback Option Applause for Hangouts On Air
Google on Tuesday introduced a real-time feedback feature called Applause for its Hangouts On Air desktop interface.
With Applause, users will now be able to give simple thumbs up or thumbs down for any Hangout streaming on-air and Google will instantly chart them in real-time, below the streaming Hangout (see above image). Previously, the search giant had two other feedback options for Hangouts On Air - Q&A and Showcase.
Q&A allows Hangouts broadcasters to interact with their live audience in the form of question and answeres in real-time, whereas Showcase allows broadcasters to direct viewers to websites, merchandise, YouTube videos, Google+ profile and Google Playcontent, from the right-hand side of the Hangout On Air.
"With Q&A, Showcase and now Applause, were excited to give viewers and creators more ways to interact live. So give Applause a try in your next Hangout On Air, and let us know what you think!" said Googles Ming Zhang on a Google+ post.
On Tuesday, Google reportedly started updating its Hangouts messaging app for Android (and its various desktop interfaces) to integrate Google Voice services, letting users chat via voice SMS and send voice mails. The changes are reportedly being made to the back-end, and users will not have to download an update.
Notably, the Google Hangouts app, which links both the text SMS and the Google Talk service, now delivers a notification about the integration via a pop-up window in the apps conversation list, giving an option to Migrate Google Voice to Hangouts. The feature was earlier spotted in dogfooding stage in a video uploaded by a YouTube user in July.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Google Hangouts update enables free voice calls to the US and Canada
Ever since Google launched Hangouts, people have been waiting for the company to truly incorporate voice calling features into the app. There’s been a way to use your Google Voice number (if you had one of those) to call people, but from now on things got a lot simpler. The requirement to have a Google Voice number is gone, basically.
Rolling out during the next few days, an update to the Hangouts app for Android will let you call people for free – if they also use Hangouts, or if they’re in the US or Canada. For those who use Hangouts on iOS or the Web, voice calls will be available the next time you open the app.
So not only is the voice calling ability free between users of the app – a la Skype or Viber, if you will – but you also get to call any phone number in the US and Canada for free. What’s more, you can also use Hangouts to call phone numbers in other countries too. And while these won’t be free, the rates are very competitive compared to the likes of Skype. Google’s full list of calling rates can be found here.
On Android, after you update to Hangouts 2.3, you’ll also need to install the Hangouts Dialer to turn on voice calls.
If you use Google Voice, that will also be integrated into the new Hangouts experience even more than before. When you’ll call someone from Hangouts, the call will still come from your Google Voice number. You can also answer from Hangouts when someone calls you on that number. Sending and receiving of Google Voice SMS messages from the Hangouts app will also be supported, and voicemails will appear in Hangouts as part of your conversations. The Google Voice features will be activated a few days after the rollout of the new Hangouts app is completed.
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