March-April developments
Notable changes in the latest Microsoft Teams updates include transforming the Recording and Transcription tab into a more streamlined Recap tab that provides a clearer summary for meeting attendees. Also, organisers with Teams Premium licences can now enable the “Disable copying or forwarding of meeting chats” feature to improve privacy and security during discussions.
Participants accessing meetings via a browser can now experience the ability to view up to 9 participant videos simultaneously on the screen. Webinar and town hall organisers can conveniently fine-tune meeting settings directly within the Teams scheduling form, streamlining the setup process.
One interesting update is the ’Voice Isolation’ feature, an AI-based advanced noise suppression feature that eliminates unwanted background noise, including other human voices. This technology recognises your voice profile and ensures that only your voice is transmitted. Voice isolation can be enabled for calls and meetings.
Furthermore, intelligent summary in Teams for iOS and Android allows users to access AI-generated meeting notes, tasks, and name mentions, enhancing post-meeting organisation. This feature is available to Teams Premium and Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers.
Another notable feature allows event organisers to easily control presenter visibility with a toggle switch, accompanied by a ‘live’ indicator on presenter video feeds in town halls, enriching the presenter-audience interaction. Live translation of subtitle updates in town halls improves inclusivity and offers participants a choice of up to six languages, with up to 10 languages available with Teams Premium.
The frosted glass background effect in Teams improves privacy and customisation during meetings. It combines background blur with personalised images for a professional look. This functionality requires you to upload a transparent PNG picture.
Google Meet’s web version now offers a ‘Portrait Fix’ feature starting this month, enabling users to adjust their appearance during meetings.
Encrypted client-side meetings in Google Meet now support co-hosts, enabling organisers to schedule and book encrypted video conferences for others. Co-hosts gain the autonomy to join and start meetings independently, enhancing meeting management flexibility.
Zoom has announced that Language Support for Multilingual Transcription is now available, allowing users to customise the language of the transcript. Supported languages are Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. Conversation indicators, on-screen text, and prompts such as indicators, next steps, and good questions are available for these languages.
A new feature in Zoom allows users to control the visibility of calendar events they have been invited to, including associated Zoom Meeting details. Users have the option to restrict visibility to internal meetings only.
Are you planning an online meeting or event and need urgent advice?
Our ConfTech Help desk provides countries and organisations with immediate advice on how to organise and run online meetings and events. Get in touch with us at conftech@diplomacy.edu.
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