Google Meet's New Digital Raising Hands Feature

Google Meet video call has a handy surprise for you! It wants to see your hand, yes, your actual hand raised, instead of the ‘hand-raised’ button.

Remember the good old school days?!

A new feature is revealed by the Big Tech giant for its video conferencing platform, Google Meet. This new feature detects the moment a user raises their hand. Say goodbye to clicking on the ‘hand-raise’ button to grasp someone’s attention and hello to physically raising your hands.

The Tech Behind It

The new Google Meet video call feature uses gesture recognition technology to identify when a participant physically raises their hand directly in front of their camera. Detecting the hand-raising gesture is powered by machine learning algorithms that are able to distinguish between a hand raised and different movements, such as scratching your face or adjusting your hair, etc.

By just enabling this feature in the Meet settings, see how it turns out here.

As you can see, it’s more natural and spontaneous to raise your hand than clicking. That, we can all agree on. I’m sure.

It will be automatically disabled for speakers while speaking, preventing the activation of the hand-raise icon every time they gesture while talking.

Again, this is about humanizing online platforms so much so that it cuts distractions and enhances what is called meeting etiquette.

You can safely say that Google is broadening its inclusivity.

Availability

The Google Meet video call is now available for Google Workspace and education users. It’s meeting people’s needs, not forgetting people who are unable to speak or type. This is a major step for Google to have a convenient and practical feature for all.

With the way we’re living nowadays, technology is one of the main pillars of our daily lives. If no one thinks of including them in the booming development phase we are witnessing, then it’s all a waste. There’ll be a huge void that nothing could fill.

A digital high-five for you, Google!

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