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Posts tagged "messages"

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Chats in Google Messages are about to get even more secure
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Google has announced that it's bringing end-to-end encryption to group chats in the Google Messages app. The security upgrade is heading to beta users first before being rolled out more widely.

End-to-end encryption means no one, not even Google, can read the content of messages. It's already supported in the Google Messages app for one-to-one chats, but now (via The Verge) it's going to be added to group conversations as well.

“End-to-end encryption is starting to roll out for group chats and will be available to some users in the open beta program over the coming weeks,” Google says. “This shouldn’t even be a thought – just an expectation and something anyone texting should not have to worry about.”

From SMS to RCS

In the same announcement blog post, Google revealed that the ability to quickly react to a message with any emoji is coming to Google Messages soon as well. At the moment, only a selection of emojis can be used as reactions.

Alongside a mention of these new features, Google also continued to push hard for RCS (Rich Communication Services) to become the new standard for everyone – the technology, an upgrade on SMS, is now widely available but has yet to be adopted by Apple on its iPhones.

Google's post also acknowledged the 30th anniversary of the SMS, a milestone which emphasizes how old the technology is as well as how overdue we now are for a standard that can fully replace it.

Analysis: SMS should really be history

The arrival of SMS three decades ago helped to transform the way that we communicate with each other – even if the messages were limited in terms of characters, and many phones could only store a limited number of texts at any one time.

Now, apps like WhatsApp and Slack have taken us far, far beyond those limitations. Messages can be much longer and include photos, videos or audio, and we can even tell when recipients have opened up the messages we send them.

It's benefits like these that make RCS a worthwhile upgrade, improving the security of messages and making features such as group chats much better. Google didn't create the standard, but it is heavily promoting it.

However, whenever an iPhone user texts an Android user, SMS is still the protocol used. Google wants that to change, but it's unlikely that Apple ever will – Apple knows that iMessage is one of the key reasons that people stick with iPhones.

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Google Docs can now help write your Gmail messages for you
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Google has added a new feature to its word processing software, Docs, that it hopes will make collaborating on important business emails easier than ever.

The office software will now offer a new email template that allows users to draft messages in Google Docs but also see how they would be portrayed as a Gmail email before sending.

Typing @email in the web version of Google Docs will now launch the new template, complete with subject lines, sender and cc fields, and body text box.

Google Docs and Gmail

Once launched, you can tag other Google Workspace users through their email addresses or user names, giving them the chance to review your work and collaborate on the message.

When finished, just click on the email button next to your draft message to see the text transformed into a Gmail compose window, where all the fields will be automatically populated based on your draft text.

Google Docs and Gmail email draft

(Image credit: Google)

The company said in its blog post that the feature has already begun rolling out to Google Docs web users, with the process due to be completed over the next few weeks.

The integration will be enabled by default, and is available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.

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> This Google Calendar update gives your co-workers nowhere to hide

> Google Sheets are about to become even more chaotic and unwieldy

> There's an all-new free version of Google Workspace for work

The feature looks to be part of Google's ongoing campaign to make online collaboration a smoother experience as more and more employees embrace hybrid working.

The company revealed its smart canvas initiative in 2021, helping tie together its range of workplace apps such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Since then, it has also introduced automatically generated summaries in Google Docs, which provide a brief overview of the main points in a document. 

Google has also launched “smart chips“, where users can use @-mentions to tag for peoples, files and meetings, along with inserting additional items such as images, tables and templates.

This was expanded recently after the company launched additional smart chips or clickable objects that pull relevant information directly into the collaboration canvas. For instance, the new maps smart chip allows you to easily preview a Google Maps link directly in Docs.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Google Docs can now help write your Gmail messages for you
  • No Comments

Google has added a new feature to its word processing software, Docs, that it hopes will make collaborating on important business emails easier than ever.

The office software will now offer a new email template that allows users to draft messages in Google Docs but also see how they would be portrayed as a Gmail email before sending.

Typing @email in the web version of Google Docs will now launch the new template, complete with subject lines, sender and cc fields, and body text box.

Google Docs and Gmail

Once launched, you can tag other Google Workspace users through their email addresses or user names, giving them the chance to review your work and collaborate on the message.

When finished, just click on the email button next to your draft message to see the text transformed into a Gmail compose window, where all the fields will be automatically populated based on your draft text.

Google Docs and Gmail email draft

(Image credit: Google)

The company said in its blog post that the feature has already begun rolling out to Google Docs web users, with the process due to be completed over the next few weeks.

The integration will be enabled by default, and is available to all Google Workspace customers, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers.

Read more

> This Google Calendar update gives your co-workers nowhere to hide

> Google Sheets are about to become even more chaotic and unwieldy

> There's an all-new free version of Google Workspace for work

The feature looks to be part of Google's ongoing campaign to make online collaboration a smoother experience as more and more employees embrace hybrid working.

The company revealed its smart canvas initiative in 2021, helping tie together its range of workplace apps such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Since then, it has also introduced automatically generated summaries in Google Docs, which provide a brief overview of the main points in a document. 

Google has also launched “smart chips“, where users can use @-mentions to tag for peoples, files and meetings, along with inserting additional items such as images, tables and templates.

This was expanded recently after the company launched additional smart chips or clickable objects that pull relevant information directly into the collaboration canvas. For instance, the new maps smart chip allows you to easily preview a Google Maps link directly in Docs.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

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Microsoft Teams will let you keep your favourite messages for all to see
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Being able to pin messages in Microsoft Teams should be possible very soon, the company has confirmed.

In the official entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap,  the software giant confirmed that the ability to pin chat messages to the top of the Teams communications service is planned for February 2022.

The ability to pin messages, similar to that offered by the likes of Slack and Telegram already offer, allows users to “pin” a specific message to the top of the channel, so that it’s always visible to other participants, regardless of the number of messages that came afterward. 

Nothing for mobile yet

The feature is set to be released for Microsoft Teams on PC and Mac clients simultaneously, but there's no word on mobile platforms just yet.

For mobile, Microsoft has recently confirmed that it is planning on adding predictive text to Teams, making it harder to make spelling or grammatical errors when typing on the go. This should be particularly interesting to hybrid and remote workers, who are often forced to communicate with their co-workers and clients while on a bus or a train.

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> There will soon be no escape from Microsoft Teams, even in the office

> How to get the latest Microsoft Teams updates

> Microsoft Teams is more popular than ever, so you'd better get used to it

The launch will be one of a series of updates and upgrades to its online collaboration platform soon.

Elsewhere, there's also the ability to to combine business and consumer Teams accounts, hopefully putting an end to any unfortunate confusion between the two, and even the possibility of adding Microsoft's Cortana voice-recognition software to the platform.

The company also recently confirmed the launch of its walkie talkie feature in Microsoft Teams, allowing customers to use their smartphone or tablet as a walkie talkie that can work over both a cellular or wireless connection. 

Via: MSPowerUser 

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WhatsApp now allows for disappearing messages – but what’s the point?
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While the feature was introduced earlier this year, WhatsApp has now expanded disappearing messages by allowing you to switch it on by default for all chats, alongside more changes.

The company has been introducing many features to the messaging app over the course of the year, with a refined appearance, multi-device support so you don't need to use your phone to manage chats, and more to better rival other apps such as Telegram and iMessage.

However, its new privacy policy has been a source of contention with users, giving WhatsApp the ability to read messages without your consent. While this expanded feature gives you greater control for certain chats, it could encourage abusers to use the app to better hide any conversations that could bring attention to law enforcement.

How to activate the new WhatsApp feature

In a blog post where the company is advocating the feature for better control over your chats, you can change the expiration timer to 24 hours, 7 days or 90 days.

This way, any messages are deleted after a certain time from when they're sent.

While the feature is slowly rolling out to devices, you can find it by going to Settings > Privacy > Disappearing Messages, and you can set the expiration to one of the three timers.

This applies to both iOS and Android, and the setting you choose will also apply to other devices you use WhatsApp on, such as the web, Windows 11, and iPad.

Analysis: A cocktail of blunders to come

Data is an important commodity in today's age, especially when it comes to social media and messaging apps. Users want to feel safe in what they post and what they share, but disappearing messages, especially if it's switched on by the recipient, and the sender doesn't know them, may struggle to quell anxiety in what's being discussed.

While WhatsApp has published a further post in explaining the disappearing messages, it still won't satisfy others who think that this is a feature that could be taken advantage of.

Indeed, the same post explicitly states that users should 'Only use disappearing messages with trusted individuals.'

It's a feature that doesn't bring much advantage to the user – the main reason of messaging apps is to keep in touch with friends and family. If we're now given the ability to remove messages, it brings in certain scenarios that weren't possible before, such as fraud and more incriminating situations.

Disappearing messages is an example of a feature that is useful in theory, but flawed in execution, and perhaps WhatsApp should roll back this feature for now.

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WhatsApp is making voice messages look more exciting
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Voice messages are, by their very nature, an audio experience – but this is something that WhatsApp is looking to change. When you receive a voice message form a contact (or, indeed, if you send one yourself), you will be used to seeing a progress bar during playback.

This is a handy visual aid that helps let you know how long a message is and how much more there is to listen to. But now the feature is getting a bit of an upgrade to make it more visually appealing thanks to voice waveforms.

We've seen WhatsApp playing around with waveforms previously, with Android users who are signed up for the beta program having been given a sneaky glimpse at the feature. But it was only a brief look, as voice waveforms were swiftly disabled without a word of explanation

However, they appear to be back. The fact that the new visual accompaniment to voice messages is now available for iOS and Android beta testers (but still only beta testers) could be indicative of the feature being almost complete and ready for an even wider rollout. But what's all the fuss about?

Sound and vision

On one hand, these are just pretty animations to watch while you listen to a message you have received. On the other, they are helpful visual tools that can be reassuring when there is a period of silence in a message; if there is no activity in the waveform, you can safely assume that there is no sound to hear, rather than there being a problem with your speakers… or ears.

As is often the case with WhatsApp, although this new feature is being made available to beta testers, it is not necessarily going to be available to all beta testers immediately. It's something that's controlled server-side, so while ensuring that you have the latest version of the app installed is undoubtedly a good idea, it's sadly no guarantee of getting access to voice wave forms right now.

WABetaInfo reports that WhatsApp beta for Android 2.21.25.11 and WhatsApp beta for iOS 2.21.240.18 are compatible with the feature, so make sure that you have one of these installed for the best possible change of getting to try out the new feature.

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