Video chatting with Grandma

(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)

Two weeks ago we asked you to submit photos of you video chatting with your grandma. Thank you for all your submissions! As promised, we’d like to highlight a few photos that particularly touched us.

Emmanuel from Israel submitted this photo and wrote "My grandmother lives in Nice, France and could not come to our wedding in Israel, this is as close as we got to having her with us."


Charlie from New York City sent in these great photos of his daughter Maayan’s first video chat with her grandparents in Portland.



And Niranjan from Bangalore submitted this photo of him video chatting with his grandmother in Mumbai while away at college.


Thanks again for your submissions-- and happy video chatting!

Posted by Cody Bratt, Google Chat team

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Grandmother's guide to video chat

(Cross-posted from the Gmail Blog)

Often when I tell people that I work on Google video chat, I hear stories about how they’ve used it to give a video tour of a new home to friends, introduce a baby to relatives, keep in touch with traveling loved ones... the list goes on. This got me thinking about how convenient— and sometimes even magical — the experience of video chatting is.

So when I saw that my grandma, who loves keeping in touch with family more than anyone, wasn’t set up to use video chat, I decided to help her get started. While doing so, it occurred to me how many people there must be out there in similar situations. If only there were a simple way that any grandmother could use to get started on her own...

Introducing the Grandmother’s Guide to Video Chat:



This video, along with a printable guide, can be accessed at google.com/chat/grandma. Feel free to share this link with your grandma—or grandpa—or, well, anyone who wants to video chat to help get them up and running.

And after your grandma is all set up, take a screenshot of you video chatting with her and email it to grammy324@gmail.com to share it with us. The first 100 people to do so will get a t-shirt, printable guide and VHS of the video (because if your grandma’s like mine, she’s still a cassette kind of girl).

In a few weeks, we’ll feature the best photos submitted on the Gmail blog.

Posted by Jason Toff, Grandson of Evelyn & Ida

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Friend Suggestions in iGoogle chat

If you’re like most people, you probably have different groups of friends. Now, with Google Chat in iGoogle, you can connect these friends by suggesting people they might already know, or who share their interests.

In addition, Google Chat will automatically suggest contacts we think you’ll be interested in, based on the people you email with the most (similar to what is currently done in Gmail). Suggestions will typically appear upon sign in (if available).

If you don’t want to receive contact suggestions, you can turn them off by clicking Options, then clicking Chat Settings, and clearing the Display contact suggestion banners checkbox.

Posted by David Bennett, software engineer

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File transfer in iGoogle and orkut chat

Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend whom you're chatting with online?  Starting today, you can share photos, documents, and other files while chatting in iGoogle and orkut.  To give it a try, just click Send a file... in the Actions menu while chatting with a friend (no download required):

This feature is also compatible with the file transfer functionality in the Google Talk downloadable software, so you can share files directly from the web with folks who use the desktop version.

File transfer is available in orkut and iGoogle only for now.  We're working on bringing it to Gmail as well, and we'll keep you posted when that happens!

​Posted by Lizhen Wang, software engineer

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Easier chat controls

When Google Chat first launched, it only supported text chat. Now, it supports voice, video and group chat. Lately, we've been hard at work making video chat work even better, and the reception has been so good that we're giving voice, video and group chat a new and improved home at the top of the chat window in iGoogle and orkut. While this isn't a major change, we hope it makes using all of our features easier.

If you’ve never used voice or video chat in iGoogle or orkut, it’s easy to get started. You'll just need a webcam and a microphone. If you already have a webcam and a microphone, you’ll just need to download a small plugin for video chat, available for free at www.google.com/chat/video.

With the plugin installed and your camera enabled, your friends will see a small green camera icon like this  next to your name in their chat lists. Then, to start a voice or video chat, simply click either the voice or video icon in the toolbar and talk away to your heart's content - all for free.

If you primarily use chat in Gmail, don't worry, we haven't forgotten you!  It'll be coming soon to Gmail as well.

Posted by Bruce Leban
Software Engineer

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​A smoother voice and video experience

We have spent the last few months focusing on three things: quality, quality, and quality! For those of you with the Google voice and video chat plugin installed, you have recently received an automatic update that contains:

• A fix that reduces crashes on newer macs (Mac OS X v10.6.2 specifically)
• A fix for webcam compatibility on Windows (including HP webcams)
• Several fixes to increase plugin stability
• Several fixes to the infrastructure used to set up and connect your video calls.

From users who have chosen to “Report quality statistics” in their chat settings, we can see a substantial increase in call connection rates and a big decrease in the call drop rate (see chart below). We hope that this will result in more enjoyable conversations with our software.

As with all software, working on improving quality is a never ending process, so we hope that you will continue to report any issues you have in our user forum, and we will continue to work on improving connection rates and call quality.

Thanks to all of you who use our service -- and especially those of you who report issues!

Posted by Jessan Hutchison-Quillian and Mikael Drugge
Software engineers

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Google voice and video update for Snow Leopard

Over the weekend, we released a specific 1.0.15 update for the Google voice and video chat software. This update is for Mac computers only, and is focused on resolving compatibility issues with Mac OS X v10.6, Snow Leopard. All current Mac installations on OS X v10.4 and v10.5 will begin an automatic update within the next few days.

However, if you have previously installed an older version of Google voice and video chat on OS X v10.6, you will need to re-install it manually by visiting http://www.google.com/chat/video and download the new 1.0.15 version.

You can use your Gmail account to find out what version is currently installed. Simply go to the Gmail Settings page and look under the "Chat" tab. You will see the plugin version under the "Learn more" link, in small type.

The following Mac OS X v10.6 issues were fixed in version 1.0.15:

* Fixed problem where the Google Talk Plugin was not detected in Safari
* Fixed problem where the Google Talk Plugin would delay system sleep by 30 seconds
* Fixed problem where video would not be displayed in a video chat
* Fixed problem where registration for automatic upgrades did not work
* Fixed problem when uninstalling and reinstalling the same version

If, after installing version 1.0.15, you continue to encounter issues with video not being displayed, a single reboot of your Mac should fix the problem. We are working with Apple to resolve this. If you are on 1.0.15 and experience problems, please report them on the Gmail voice and video chat forums.


Posted by Justin Uberti
Software Engineer

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