Google has updated Hangouts with some smart features – including ability to interpret when your contact is asking for your location and ability to share it with click – alongside other fun features such as stickers, last seen timestamp among other things.
There are times when you are at a location where it will be relatively tough to let someone know where you are at if asked. This is what Google worked on and now with Hangouts, if somebody now asks you where you are, you will get a prompt if you want to share your location. Hangouts does have the location sharing option as of now, but what the update is trying to do is implement natural language processing abilities to determine from the conversation if there is anything that can be dealt with a quick reply option.
Thanks to this little nifty feature, Hangouts will also provide you with an option to drop a pin on a map so as to fudge your location in case you don’t want to reveal your exact location.
“We use machine learning and natural language processing to give an assist. With one click, you can share your location. This is entirely optional,” said Bradley Horowitz, vice president of product at Google, at the LeWeb conference in Paris.
Beyond this feature, the latest update to Google Hangouts also brings with it last seen timestamp. This could be seen as a catch-up feature – something that is already available in other instant messaging apps.
Further, the updated app also includes 16 new sticker pages including pirates, cats, and Vikings, and a couple of Easter eggs – ‘woot’ & ‘happy birthday’. You can also apply filters to your video chats including sepia, vignette, black and white, among others.
Horowitz said that they are not trying to build an app for every single purpose, but intend “to do something broader that helps people communicate wherever they are using whatever products they prefer.”
The update is already available to Android users and should be available to iOS users once it gains the approval.
