Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, video calling has proved to be one of the most convenient and safest ways to keep in touch with friends and family at the same time maintaining social distancing. That has led to us to the current boom in video conferencing apps, the likes of Zoom.
Google Duo, which has been a laggard in this market, is also pulling up the socks and wants to be one of the go-to platforms to video chatting. The company plans to win over users’ hearts by rolling out a new video codec technology that will bump up calling quality massively.
Google is adopting the AV1 video codec technology that takes over the current VP9, bringing improvements to the video call quality. This will also result in excellent video stability, even in low bandwidth connections. Netflix has also embraced a similar technology on Android in the past, which promised massive data savings — up to 20pc.
By upping Duo’s video call quality, Google will have handled all the aspects that have been holding the platform back from delivering better calls. That is an addition to the last announced machine-learning algorithm that has already been brought on the platform to help reduce audio interruptions.
Duo is also receiving a new feature that lets you capture side-by-side photos of you and the other person. This will even rollout for group calls as well, the company said.
To rhyme with the current need for more group calls, Duo now supports 12 participants (instead of 8 from last month), and in “the coming weeks,” these numbers will be increased further.
Google says Duo users are sending 180 percent more messages to as high as 800 percent in areas that have embraced social distancing. As a result, Duo has added new AR effects to let your friends and family know you are thinking of them.
