Google is stepping up its background effects in Google Meet.
The company’s video conferencing software has offered all sorts of effects for some time now, letting you blur your background or remove it entirely, adding a virtual background instead. But the way these effects worked left a lot to be desired. OK, I’ll be frank, they sucked.
Now they are improving. In a blog post on Monday, the company said it has improved the separation of background and foreground, allowing for finer effects such as background blur, screen replacement, and more. background and background and immersive styles.
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You can now be a cat in Google Meet calls
The company demonstrated these new capabilities in a GIF, below, showing how you can finally attend a Meet call while wearing a hat and not having your totally weird virtual background.
Google also said that these effects will now look better on devices that can’t handle running real-time video effects. Meet will detect these devices and automatically switch to cloud-based processing of these events. According to Google, this will both save battery life and reduce CPU load on your device.
This feature will initially only work on background blur and light adjustment effects, with additional effects coming in the future.
These features are available to all users now, so wear your biggest hat for today’s Meet meeting.