GMail's new features: voice & video chat!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

ZDNet Blog
Googling Google
By Garett Rogers
November 11, 2008 12:39 pm

Google just updated their blog What's New? page for Gmail with information about a new feature called, Voice and Video Chat!. The voice and video chat plugin that you must download in order to use the feature incorporates a technology called Vydeo.

Vydeo specializes in standard and custom video format conversion, routing and transmission delivery systems designs for key OEMs, targeted to markets such as medical endoscopy, medical instrumentation, surgical camera platforms, scientific and machine vision applications. Vydeo : Partnering for Success™

Google Talk has let people do voice conversations for a long time, but the web version of the service in Gmail has always been media-free. This new feature lets you do both voice and video, taking it one step past Google Talk?s voice-only feature. That said, the feature still isn?t enabled in my Gmail, but it must be extremely close to coming online.

The ?learn more? page for this new feature shows a video of the new feature in action. Click here to watch the video.

Here's what you'll need to get started:

* Download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in, quit all open browser windows, and install the plug-in.
* Sign in to Gmail.
* In the Chat section of your Gmail, select the contact you want to call. If they have a camera icon next to their name, you can make a voice or video call to them; just click Video & more.


If your friend doesn't have a camera next to their name in your chat list, you can invite them to download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in from the Video & more menu in a chat window. Even if your friend doesn't have a video camera, you can still make a voice call or a 1-way video call.

The new feature is very simple to install, and easy to use. This feature is a long time coming for Google Talk, and I'm excited to see it finally arrive.

Garett Rogers is employed as a programmer for iQmetrix, which specializes in retail management software for the wireless industry. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Sources :

ZDNet Googling Google Blog: Gmail launching voice and video chat!

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