Google Announces Four New Duo Features

Apr. 22, 2020

Google’s video calling app, Duo, has seen an upsurge in usage since the Coronavirus pandemic locked us all down in our houses. In fact, Google says that every week, it is seeing 10 million people sign up for Google Duo, and in a lot of countries calling times have increased over 10 times. Clearly, Duo is important in these times, and Google is now adding four new features to the app to make it more reliable and useful.

Support for AV1 Codec

Google Duo isend-to-end encrypted, and uses AI to avoid interruptionsin audio. It is also likely one of the only video calling apps on Android that perform really well even on low bandwidths, and now the company is adding support for the AV1 video codec which should enable the app topush better quality video even on very low bandwidths.GIF showing quality difference between AV1 (left) and current codec (right) on a 30kbps bandwidth. Courtesy: Google

Also being added to Duo is a feature that will let users click a picture in between a video call to save important memories. This doesn’t work like a regular screenshot, by the way. As you can see in the GIF embedded below, this featureplaces the screens of both the parties side-by-sidein the captured image.Courtesy: Google

Google recently increased thegroup calling limits to 12 participantsin a group as compared to the previous limit of 8 members. The company is observing a large number of group video calls being placed on the platform (8 times higher, actually), and is therefore planning toincrease the group size of Duo calls even furtherin the coming weeks.

Google is working on adding the ability tosave personalised messagesthat users send to each other on the app. These messages include both video and voice messages, as well as photos, notes, and doodles that Duo users can send to each other. The service has also added AR effects to send messages such as “I miss you” or “I’m thinking of you”.

Google Duo works on all platforms. It can be downloaded from theApp StoreorPlay Store, or accessedvia a web browseron Mac, Windows, andChrome OS.