New Labs Experiment for Gmail: Video Chat Enhancements
The Gmail chat feature keeps making the headlines as Mountain View-based giant Google keeps rolling out the good news. As you may remember, not too long ago Google announced that the plugin that provided voice and video chat to Windows users for such a long time has finally been rolled out to Linux users (read more about this here).
Then Google followed up with an even better announcement – by integrating Google Voice in Gmail chat, users can make calls to landline and mobile phones from within Gmail. The plugin that allows users to voice and video chat with other Gmail users also allows them to call landline and mobile phones (read more about this here). That announcement was soon followed by Google's Tips on How to Make the Most of Calling in Gmail.
Now here’s the latest news: a Gmail Labs experiment called “Video chat enhancements” has been launched yesterday. This experiment gives you access to things like higher resolution and bigger windows.
Product Manager Serge Lachapelle comments: “If you use video chat in Gmail, you might be interested in a new Labs feature we just rolled out that allows you to preview new video chat features before they're turned on for everyone. Turn on ‘Video chat enhancements’, and right away, you'll see higher resolution video and a bigger video chat window. We plan to add more video chat enhancements to this lab in the future, so if you have it on you'll automatically get those too.”
Check out the image below to see how much better video chat looks like with this Labs experiment turned on. Please note that in order for this to work you and the person you want to chat with both need to have the Video chat enhancements experiment turned on.
If you would like to turn on Video chat enhancements, here is what you have to do (a simple 3-step process):
1. - Go to Gmail (click here – a new tab will open), enter your login credentials and click Sign in. If you are already signed into your Google account, click this link and you can just skip step 2 in this tutorial.
2. - In the top right corner of the screen, right next to your user name you should be able to see Settings; click it. Now locate Labs and click it as well.
3. - Scroll down until you find a Labs experiment called Video chat enhancements. Select Enable, then click Save Changes (there’s a Save Changes button at the top of the experiments list and at the bottom as well) and you’re done.
Then Google followed up with an even better announcement – by integrating Google Voice in Gmail chat, users can make calls to landline and mobile phones from within Gmail. The plugin that allows users to voice and video chat with other Gmail users also allows them to call landline and mobile phones (read more about this here). That announcement was soon followed by Google's Tips on How to Make the Most of Calling in Gmail.
Now here’s the latest news: a Gmail Labs experiment called “Video chat enhancements” has been launched yesterday. This experiment gives you access to things like higher resolution and bigger windows.
Product Manager Serge Lachapelle comments: “If you use video chat in Gmail, you might be interested in a new Labs feature we just rolled out that allows you to preview new video chat features before they're turned on for everyone. Turn on ‘Video chat enhancements’, and right away, you'll see higher resolution video and a bigger video chat window. We plan to add more video chat enhancements to this lab in the future, so if you have it on you'll automatically get those too.”
Check out the image below to see how much better video chat looks like with this Labs experiment turned on. Please note that in order for this to work you and the person you want to chat with both need to have the Video chat enhancements experiment turned on.
If you would like to turn on Video chat enhancements, here is what you have to do (a simple 3-step process):
1. - Go to Gmail (click here – a new tab will open), enter your login credentials and click Sign in. If you are already signed into your Google account, click this link and you can just skip step 2 in this tutorial.
2. - In the top right corner of the screen, right next to your user name you should be able to see Settings; click it. Now locate Labs and click it as well.
3. - Scroll down until you find a Labs experiment called Video chat enhancements. Select Enable, then click Save Changes (there’s a Save Changes button at the top of the experiments list and at the bottom as well) and you’re done.
