Pair your video tile in Google Meet to improve accessibility for users with language interpreters

What’s changing 

Currently, there are a variety of features to help make meetings more inclusive and equitable, including screen reader support and live captions. 


Today, we’re introducing tile pairing for Google Meet, which will allow you to pair your video tile with another meeting participant's tile. Once you pair your tile, other meeting participants will see both tiles shown next to each other. Both pairing partners will have their borders outlined in blue when speaking. Tile pairing will be indicated in the meeting captions as well. 


Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it matters

Tile pairing can help make meetings more accessible, specifically in situations where you want to ensure a sign-language or other language interpreter is visible during the meeting. You can also use this feature to pair speaker duos or presenters with co-presenters for a more dynamic presenting experience. 


Additional details 

At this time, tile pairings will not be captured in meeting recordings. Also, tile pairing is not available in break out rooms at this time.


Getting started

  • Admins: This feature will be ON by default and can be turned off at the OU level. Visit the Help Center to learn more about managing Meet settings and accessibility in Google Meet.

  • End users: 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about pairing tiles in Google Meet and accessibility in Google Meet.
    • If enabled by your admin, tile pairing will be available for all users. Find the user you would like to pair with in the participant list, click on the 3-dot menu and send a pairing request.
    • You’ll receive a notification with a choice to “accept” or “decline” the pairing.

Rollout pace



Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts

Resources


Long Term Support Channel Update for ChromeOS

LTS-108 is being updated in the LTS channel to 108.0.5359.243 (Platform Version: 15183.106.0) for most ChromeOS devices. Want to know more about Long Term Support? Click here.


This update contains multiple Security fixes, including:

1479274 High CVE-2023-4863 Heap buffer overflow in Web
1472492 High CVE-2023-4572 Use after free in MediaStream
1470668 High CVE-2023-4427 Out of bounds memory access in V8

Giuliana Pritchard 

Google Chrome OS

Collaborate more seamlessly with live pointers in Google Slides

What’s changing

To boost collaboration in Google Slides, we’re introducing live pointers, a new feature that allows you and your colleagues to see each other’s mouse pointers in real-time. 

With this update, co-creators can easily point out specific text or visual elements within a Slide in order to highlight important information and content. 
Collaborate more seamlessly with live pointers in Google Slides

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it’s important 

Live pointers help to build connections when you're collaborating in real-time with others. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. 
  • End users: 
    • This feature is OFF by default. To make your pointer visible to collaborators, go to View > Live pointers > show my pointer. You can also turn the feature on by using the pointer icon in the toolbar. Live pointers will remain visible across all slides until you turn them OFF.
      • You can hide collaborator pointers for the current session by going into present mode, or by going to View > Live pointers > show collaborator pointers. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about live pointers in Google Slides. 

Rollout pace 


Availability 

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts 

Resources

Add Google Groups to spaces in Google Chat

What’s changing

In continuing our efforts to improve spaces in Google Chat, we’re introducing the ability for space managers and users with the permission to manage members to add Google Groups to a space. With this update, the group members are automatically added to a space and any changes to the group's membership, such as adding and removing members, are also automatically reflected in the space. 
Add Google Groups to spaces in Google Chat

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 

This feature adds a Google Group to a space and continuously syncs membership from Groups to Chat, making membership management, especially adding or removing a large number of members, much easier. 

Additional details 

  • Memberships are updated from Groups to Chat, which means changes to the space membership will not be reflected in the group members list. 
  • Some groups and their members may not be visible to all members in the space as group member visibility in spaces will respect the group’s member visibility settings set in Google Groups. 
  • Group members can be promoted to space managers. Visit the Help Center to learn more about making someone a space manager. 

Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • By default, any space manager or user with permission to manage members can add groups to space. 
    • To limit this feature so that only Google Group owners and managers can add groups to spaces, sign into the Admin console > go to Menu > Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat > select “Groups in Chat” > Choose who can add groups to spaces > click Save. Visit the Help Center to learn more about restricting who can add Google Groups to spaces. 
  • End users: 
    • If you are a space manager or have permission to manage members, you can add the Google Group as a member by selecting the space > going to space settings > click Manage members > select the “+ Add” button > enter the name of the group you want to add > click Add. 
    • If you are unable to add a group to a space, it is likely that your admin has restricted the ability to add a group to the Group owners and managers. Reach out to the Google Group owners and managers to add the group. 
    • Google Groups can also be added when creating a new space. Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating spaces. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about adding a group to a space, removing a group from a space, viewing groups in a space and more. 
  • Developers: For developers who are registered in the Workspace Developer Preview program, you will be able to modify your Chat App to also list Google Groups added to spaces using the Chat API. 

Rollout pace 

Admin controls: 
Add Groups to spaces: 

Availability 

Resources 

Find and install third-party add-ons directly within Google Meet

What’s changing 

You can now find, install, and use third-party applications all without having to leave Google Meet. At the top of the activities panel, you’ll see a “Featured add-ons” category — from here, it takes two clicks to install and begin using apps such as Confluence, Figma, Lucidspark, Miro, Polly and Read.ai in your meetings. 





You can use the “Get add-ons” button to open the Google Workspace Marketplace to browse additional add-ons for Meet. Note that in some cases, admins may have pre-installed add-ons for you or have turned off access to certain add-ons. 


Whether you’re leveraging the white boarding capabilities of Miro or Lucidspark, or using Figma to explore design possibilities in real time — you can do it all within Google Meet, without switching tabs or opening additional applications. Further, since these add-ons open directly in Meet, you can share your screen with all participants, even those who don’t have the add-on or are on an unsupported platform.


Additional details

The Miro-Meet integration is now available via the Miro add-on
In 2022, we announced the Miro integration within Google Meet — at that time, Miro would open in a separate tab with Google Meet in the sidebar. Beginning today, Miro will open directly in Meet, allowing you to leverage Miro’s rich capabilities designed for innovation without leaving Meet. With this update, users can access the Miro integration with Meet by installing the Miro add-on in the Google Workspace Marketplace. For more information about how the Miro experience is changing, see this Community forum post.



Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available to all Google Workspace customers

Resources

Chrome Stable for iOS Update

Hi everyone! We've just released Chrome Stable 117 (117.0.5938.108) for iOS; it'll become available on App Store in the next few hours.

This release includes stability and performance improvements. You can see a full list of the changes in the Git log. If you find a new issue, please let us know by filing a bug.

Harry Souders
Google Chrome