Zoom has unveiled a host of updates to its video conferencing and collaboration platforms, one of which may prove unpopular with the brainless of this world. Thanks to integrations with Google and Outlook calendars, Zoom will soon start displaying a list of meeting invitees who haven't joined the call yet. “Their response to the invitation (accepted, declined, maybe) appears with their name and the host can easily invite them to the meeting from the attendee panel,” the company explained. While useful in various contexts (such as signing up for a virtual course, for example), on days of crashing a team meeting a few minutes late, the host won't ignore it. Interestingly, the feature will only be available to free users in an early beta test, before rolling out to all customers at a later date.
Zoom update
In addition to the attendee status feature, Zoom is also making some less controversial updates, with the goal of "optimizing your personal experience throughout the meeting lifecycle—before, during, and after the meeting." For example, the company makes it easy to see which security features are active for a given meeting, simply by clicking the shield icon in the upper left corner of the meeting screen. To preserve bandwidth for shared content, users will also be able to disable all incoming video streams, without cutting them off for everyone. In Zoom Chat, the company's messaging platform, users will be able to use rich text formatting options such as bold, italics, font size, indentation and more. And users can now also quote original posts in their replies, minimizing the potential for confusion on high-traffic channels. Finally, Zoom is making some changes to its conference room offering. Zoom Rooms users will soon be able to use a number of features previously reserved for the standard video conferencing service, such as huddle rooms and focus mode, as well as benefit from compatibility with a wider range of material. The new features will roll out in the coming weeks.