The coronavirus pandemic has seen a rise in the use of video calling apps and companies are now adding new features based on customer feedback.
Last month Microsoft added background blur to Microsoft Teams on iOS and now Google might be planning to do something similar for Google Meet. First spotted by 9to5Google, it looks like the version 41.5 of Google Meet comes with a set of strings that mention background blur. The strings include the following pieces of text:
- Background blur turned off
- Background blur turned on
- Turn off background blur
- Turn on background blur
While the ability to blur backgrounds popped up on Android first, it is safe to assume that Google will be adding it to the web in the future. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that Google is working on supporting custom backgrounds on Meet. Both Microsoft Teams and Zoom support the ability to set an image as a background and Teams even allow users to blur their backgrounds.
Google Meet is currently available for free to everyone until September 30. Google noted that it might make the service restricted to 60 minutes after 30th September but for now, you can get the G Suite Essential plan that gives customers access to Google Meet and Google Drive till September 30. Google recently added a bunch of new features which include 16-user tiled layout, noise cancellation, and Gmail integration.