Overnight, Google has delivered their Keynote speech for IO 2013, one of the biggest launches was the Hangouts function. Hangouts is effectively replacing Google Talk but brings many new features such as photos, emoji and group video calls. Hangouts is also cross platform, operating on desktops as well as Android and iOS devices.
In actual use the Hangouts Extension – which is available in the Chrome Webstore – is quite nifty. Emoji and Group Chat are particularly nice features and moving from device to device(mobile to desktop etc.) also appears to work very well, with the Hangouts app seemingly able to distinguish when you’ve moved and silencing alerts on devices not in use.
The Hangouts, webstore description also advises that you can send photos, messages or emoji to people even when not connected and also has the ability to ‘snooze’ notifications so you can receive them later. Hangout history is saved so you can review photos and video call history as well but you can also go off the record by turning history off.
It’s early days for this new feature but try it out for yourself and see what you think.
