Google Meet, Google’s answer to video calling services like Zoom, is getting a collection of helpful tweaks to its hand-raising feature as part of ongoing updates to Workspace. The new changes, spotted by 9to5Google, include a new hand-raising animation, notification sound, and adjustments to how hosts are made aware of raised hands.
While the update is minor, for anyone who uses Google Meet in a large group setting or regularly attends webinars, the tweaks will be helpful — plus, the new animation really is nice.
Here’s Google’s breakdown of the changes you’ll notice as the update rolls out to Workspace users:
- An updated and improved visual icon and animation on the video tile
- The tiles of people with raised hands may be moved to be more visible in the video grid
- An audio notification for all participants when the first raised hand is raised
- A clickable notification which shows the number of raised hands and which links to an ordered queue of all participants with raised hands
- That a participant’s hand will be automatically lowered after they speak
Google says the new feature will be available for any meeting created by hosts with Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Nonprofit, and G Suite Business accounts.
For the more exciting changes to Workspace announced at the I/O 2021 Developers Conference, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. Google just rolled out Workspace to anyone with a Google account and enabled its new Chat and Rooms features (replacements for G Chat and Slack). Bigger changes like smart chips, which makes all Workspace apps more interoperable and fluid, are still a ways off.
