Google extends free access to advanced Meet tools to 30 September 2020

[Arthur]

Source: Google (via Neowin)

 

More than a decade ago we introduced secure, easy-to-use business collaboration and productivity apps (now known as G Suite), and we envisioned a new way of working in the cloud. And although we always knew the value of cloud-based collaboration, it is more important than ever at a time like this.

 

Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen Google Meet—G Suite’s video conferencing solution—help millions of people stay connected, whether it’s colleagues working at home, companies livestreaming to global employees, doctors caring for patients, banks providing loans, retailers and restaurants helping the elderly place orders for home delivery or curbside pickup, social services conducting welfare checks, governments serving citizens, or schools staying in session.

 

Earlier this week, we surpassed a new milestone, with more than 2 million new users connecting on Google Meet every day, and they're spending over 2 billion minutes together---that’s more than 3,800 years of secure meetings in a single day. We’re humbled by the huge responsibility that comes with this growth, and we’re determined to continue doing our part to help.

 

Here’s a little more on what that means.

 

Meet, and all of G Suite, runs on Google’s secure, resilient global infrastructure, which helps us reliably manage our capacity to keep our services up and running. With Meet, organizations around the world can take advantage of the same secure-by-design infrastructure, built-in protection, and global network that Google uses to secure your information and safeguard your privacy. You can learn more in our Google Meet security blog post.

 

Last month, we made advanced Google Meet video-conferencing capabilities available at no cost to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers. We’ve now extended that availability to 30 September 2020 to ensure businesses, organizations, institutions, and educators continue to be supported during this time.

[Arthur]

Also: Google's Hangouts Meet is now just Google Meet

 

Remote workers, meeters, streamers, and hangers-out, take note: Google’s Hangouts Meet is no longer called Hangouts Meet; it’s now called Google Meet.

 

The rebrand was made apparent yesterday in a Google Cloud blog post written by two of Google’s directors of product management, Karthik Lakshminarayanan and Smita Hashim. The blog post lists a number of privacy measures that Google Meet employs to keep remote meetings from being hijacked, and also refers to the service as Google Meet. Android Police found that a number of support pages had been updated with the new title as well.

 

In an email to The Verge, Google confirmed that it has officially changed the service’s name. Google also confirmed that Meet is an independent part of G Suite, the portfolio of business services that also includes brands such as Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Drive. Hangouts Chat, the text-messaging arm of the Hangouts brand, is also part of the suite.

 

The rebrand still appears to be a work in progress. As of this writing, the service is still called Hangouts Meet by Google in the iOS App Store, and its G Suite landing page also retains the old name. And while G Suite’s website lists “Meet” as an included service at the top of the page, “Hangouts Meet” is still referenced in a list lower down.

 

The rebrand comes at a time when Google Meet has seen explosive growth as the COVID-19 pandemic forces workplaces to move their meetings online. Google Meet’s usage is currently 25 times what it was in January, Google revealed late last month, and the service is gaining more than 2 million new users a day.

 

Most people I know referred to Google Hangouts Meet as Google Meet anyway.

[Arthur]

Google Meet premium video meetings—free for everyone

 

Today, we’re making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks. We’ve invested years in making Meet a secure and reliable video conferencing solution that’s trusted by schools, governments and enterprises around the world, and in recent months we’ve accelerated the release of top-requested features to make it even more helpful. Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to our business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including an expanded tiled view.

 

It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks. This means you might not be able to create meetings at meet.google.com right away, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s available.

[Alis_Klar]

Slightly off topic but is there a discussion on EduGeek about this https://schoolleaders.thekeysupport.com/news/digital-education-platform-scheme/?marker=module-inthenews

 

DfE giving £2000 grants to school to setup online learning environments they will accept use of G Suit and Microsoft 365 only it seems. Not sure if schools who have already deploed a online learning environment can still get the money for laptops or something.