Welcome to the latest edition of the No Jitter Roll. In this edition: Zoom shares new features for its suite of services; Microsoft updates its meeting space service Teams Rooms with a new layout option.
Zoom Shares Update to Meetings, Rooms, Events, and Phone Services
The videoconferencing company today shared a host of updates to its various services. First, the company changes to Zoom Meetings, which include:
- Language interpretation by default: Zoom is now offering account owners and admins to enable the language interpretation feature by default when scheduling Zoom meetings, a feature that will help create an equitable meeting experience for employees.
- Video option for Waiting Rooms: Meeting hosts can add a video when setting up the meeting Waiting Room, thus allowing participants to view the video while they wait for the host to allow them into the meeting. Zoom calls this "a seamless method for distributing important information before the meeting begins." This feature requires client version 5.7.3 or higher, and it’s available for all paid Zoom customers.
- Virtual background and watermark updates: Admins can set a default virtual background that will automatically reset at the beginning of each meeting and enable or disable visual watermark during a meeting.
For Zoom Rooms, the company added:
- Smart Gallery support for Mac and Windows: Zoom will now offer Smart Gallery support, which displays multiple video feeds from a single conference room for Mac, Windows, and any certified USB camera.
- Zoom Rooms Controllers updated: Zoom Rooms Controllers now have a consistent look and feel to the rest of Zoom Rooms and Zoom's product with a recent update, available on most devices.
For its event platform, Zoom has added a new feature aimed at re-creating the expo hall experience. With the Expo feature, event hosts can create a virtual expo floor, where attendees can visit exhibitor booths, and booth representatives or sponsors can respond to these requests and field multiple conversations simultaneously.
Lastly, Zoom shared several new features for its phone service , Zoom Phone, which include:
- Adding a fourth person to a three-way phone call: Zoom users have access to a beta feature that’ll allow them to add another person (or multiple other callers) to an existing three-way call. Callers can talk to the additional party before adding them to the three-way call, and participants can receive a notification when the new person joins the call.
- Group call pick-up feature updated: The group call pick-up feature has been updated with a subtler ringtone and a notification that will inform group call members when a call went to voicemail or a team member picked it up.
Separately, Zoom shared in a separate blog post that a FedRAMP-approved version of Zoom Phone, more Zoom Webinar license options, Zoom United packages, Zoom Events, Zoom Phone Power Pack, and others have been added to the General Services Administration Schedule 70.
Microsoft Adds Default Camera and Layout Options
In the latest Microsoft Teams Room update, Microsoft has added the option for admins to set the Front Row layout as the default for Microsoft Teams Rooms. The Front Row layout “moves the video gallery to the bottom of the screen so in-room participants can see remote colleagues face to face across a horizontal plane–similar to if they were in the same room,”
according to Microsoft 365 head Jared Spataro. The preview will be rolling out using Teams web client and will complete rollout in next couple of weeks.
In addition to the front row layout, Teams users can now switch between multiple video cameras in Teams Rooms meetings and set a default video camera setting. And there is greater Cortana integration with voice activation enabled by default and an updated push-to-talk icon update on the Rooms console.
