BYOD on Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms

What’s changing

We're launching an integration with Lightware peripheral switchers, so that you and your team can bring your own devices (BYOD) to Google Meet on Chrome OS touch controller rooms. Now, you can plug your laptop into a Meet room with a single USB-C cable and easily use the room's display, speaker, microphone, and camera—along with your laptop—for video conferencing. The integration is available with the following peripheral switcher devices:

  • Lightware Taurus UCX 4x2 HC40
  • Lightware Taurus UCX 4x3 HC40

Additional details

This offers the following benefits:

  • Seamless transition: Rooms will automatically enter BYOD mode as soon as a user connects their laptop via a certified cable, enabling immediate use of the room's display and high-quality audio and video equipment.
  • Meeting continuity: If a Google Meet call is already in progress, connecting a laptop will not interrupt the call or activate BYOD mode. The same cable for BYOD mode can be used during a Google Meet meeting for sharing your screen to the meeting, ensuring a unified meeting experience.
  • Enhanced admin control: Administrators will gain new visibility within the Google admin console, allowing them to see when BYOD mode is active in a room and preventing erroneous missing peripheral alerts when a third-party device is in control.

Getting started

  • Admins: Visit the Lightware website for more information.
  • End users: Once the integration is installed, use a USB-C cable to use the room displays, audio devices, and camera.

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Meet on Chrome OS devices

Resources

A more modern interface for viewing PDFs, videos, images, and audio files in Google Drive on the web

What’s changing

Google Drive is making significant improvements to the viewing experience of third party file formats, such as PDFs, videos, images, and audio files. With this launch, we are modernizing the interface to include:

  • A new left rail for PDFs which will include a table of contents (where applicable) and thumbnails for easier navigation of documents
  • A new file menu
  • A new toolbar and app bar
  • An option to search by transcript when looking at a video

This modernization will make it easier for Google Workspace users to navigate documents, and will be particularly useful for large documents. 

New Drive Web Viewing Experience for PDFs
New Drive Web Viewing Experience for PDFs

Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be on by default. There is no admin control for this feature.
  • End users: This feature will be on by default. You will see it when you open a supported file format in a new tab in Google Drive on the web. Use our Help Center to learn more about how to use Google Drive. 

Rollout pace

Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual Subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts

Resources

Chrome Dev for Desktop Update

The Dev channel has been updated to 145.0.7561.3 for Windows, Mac and Linux.

A partial list of changes is available in the Git log. Interested in switching release channels? Find out how. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug. The community help forum is also a great place to reach out for help or learn about common issues.

Chrome Release Team
Google Chrome