Online business Toolkit

Google Mail gets voice and video chat

David Meyer ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 12 Nov 2008 16:41 GMT

Google has integrated voice and video chat into its Google Mail web application.

The new service, announced on Wednesday, requires users to install what Google describes as a "small web browser plug-in", as well as a webcam.

Google is pitching the feature at business customers as well as consumers. The company said on Wednesday that it would allow workers to use it for videoconferencing while out of the office, for example.

Google Mail users can activate the feature by opening a chat window and choosing 'add voice/video chat' from the options menu, an action that will lead to a one-time installation of the 2MB browser plug-in.

According to the Google Mail blog, the company designed the voice and video feature using web standards such as XMPP, RTP and H2.64 "in the spirit of open communications", in order for third-party applications to be able to interoperate with it.

The announcement of Google Mail's voice and video chat feature came a day after the company revealed an auto-translate feature for its RSS reader tool. Users subscribing to blogs or feeds in other languages can now change the settings for those feeds to automatically translate such published items into their native tongue.