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Learn how to stop bad actors and keep your calls secure. Video calls have become the norm for consumers and businesses alike during the pandemic. We've tested all the services, and here's how three of the top contenders stack up. Deepfaking a Celebrity on a Zoom Call is Now Possible The Avatarify software works by taking a still image of the target you want to deepfake, say Elon Musk, and bringing the picture to life using your own facial movements 2 years, 1 month By Michael Kan.
Zoom vs. With a free account you can host up to participants, but calls are limited to 40 minutes unless you have only one other person on the call, in which case the limit is 30 hours. Calls can have up to people on them, and the time limit for any call is 30 hours. If you need to have more people on a call, you can add on a Large Meeting feature for an extra fee.
You also get social media streaming and 1GB cloud space for call recordings. This account type is limited to nine licenses. You can host up to people on a call, with the option to add on the Large Meeting feature for a fee. This plan also includes company branding, the option to record transcripts, and single sign-on for users. You can host people on a call and get unlimited cloud storage for call recordings. Zoom offers other types of business-grade plans for specific use cases, such as a voice-over-IP service called Zoom Phone and a subscription for hosting webinars.
Those services are sold separately from the core Zoom Meeting account types. Other business communication software packages, such as Webex by Cisco often roll together video calling with VoIP phones, webinar functionality, and other communication tools. Zoom has become more fractured by comparison, though you may be able to cobble together the services you need and want through add-ons. Similarly, government agencies interested in Zoom should look more closely at its Zoom for Government plan.
If you're invited to a Zoom meeting, you don't need to create an account. However, you will see a prompt to download the Zoom Meetings application. Downloading the app is optional, as you can connect via a web app just fine. The installed app does give you an optimized experience, however.
If you're new to the app, I highly recommend picking up a few Zoom tips before your first call. The locally installed app and the web account contain slightly different settings, and it's in your best interest to explore both. We highly encourage new users to spend time going through the settings before using Zoom, not only for privacy and security reasons, but also to get the most out of what Zoom has to offer.
For example, there are options to put attendees on hold, give remote control of your keyboard and mouse to another person while you give a presentation, touch up your appearance, and automatically adjust your picture in low light.
It's in your best interest to be familiar with these tools in advance of a call. If you want to host a session in Zoom Meetings and invite others to join, then you need to create an account. You can use the same PMI meeting link multiple times, which is convenient for small groups that meet regularly. In other words, you never have to generate a fresh link to meet. You always have the option, however, to create a unique meeting ID and link, which may be preferable for security reasons.
I've used Zoom as both a participant and host frequently, starting around Joining a meeting takes little effort. Connecting takes a few seconds if you already have the app installed and only about two extra clicks if you choose the web app instead of the desktop app. The mobile apps work fine, too, though I prefer to join meetings from a computer. One convenience that's relatively new is how and when Zoom updates.
Instead of checking for updates upon launch when you might already be running late , Zoom checks for available updates when you're about to quit the app. It's a nice detail. To set up or start a meeting using Zoom, you have several options. As mentioned, you can copy your Personal Meeting ID directly from the app and send it to participants. They either click the link or launch Zoom and enter the PMI, and you're off to the races. Alternatively, you can schedule a meeting in advance from the Zoom app or directly from a connected calendar—Google Calendar, iCal, or Microsoft Outlook.
Doing it from an integrated calendar is better because you can add an agenda or meeting description. When you set up a meeting from the Zoom app, you can't. Choose a date, start and end time, time zone, and a few other preferences, such as whether you'd like your video camera to activate automatically when you begin the call. If you give participants the option to join by phone, you can choose which country dial-in numbers to display.
A link to all the dial-in options appears on the invitation, too. Your scheduled meetings and all the details for how to connect automatically show up on your connected calendar. An option to password-protect meetings is handy, but in practice doesn't feel that secure.
Ever since Zoom enhanced its security features, the unique meeting ID and passcode are selected by default, but the unique link that's added to the invitation makes it unnecessary for anyone you've invited directly to enter the password.
With a Pro account, you can require that attendees "register," meaning they must fill out a short form before they join. That survey lets you collect information about them. It's useful when you use Zoom for webinars and you aren't sure who might attend. You also need to enable this option if you want to run reports of who has joined meetings. Another feature is a waiting room, which has two purposes. First, participants can log onto a meeting and see a hold screen until the host officially starts the meeting, which effectively prevents participants from interacting with one another before the host is ready.
Second, the waiting room allows the host to control who can join and when. Hosts, especially with paid Zoom accounts, get a lot of options. Aside from creating a waiting room, hosts can also control whether participants are muted upon entry to a meeting, whether their cameras are active or off, and whether people can chat with one another privately, or at all, or only as a group.
As a participant, you can enable or disable your own video and microphone at any time, again, as long as the host allows you to turn them on at all. One reason to intentionally disable them is for certain types of meetings, such as large presentations.
Participants can use on-screen buttons or keyboard shortcuts for muting and unmuting as well as enabling or disabling the camera. Hosts can also disable any participant's microphone or camera at any time. Hosts see a Security button, which was added in and will show up on their toolbar during active calls. This button gives quick access to important security features, such as locking the meeting, enabling a waiting room for additional guests who try to join after the meeting starts, and giving participants permission to share their screens, chat, and so forth.
Hosts and people with permission can add new people to the call on an ad hoc basis. For example, if you're already on a call and realize that you need to invite more people, there are tools for quickly copying your meeting ID and other information to send.
There's also an option to start drafting an email with the invitation information, too. As a participant, you can configure your screen to see relevant information panels, a chat box, and different view modes, such as Gallery View and Speaker View. Even if the host keeps participants muted, there are buttons for raising your hand, requesting the speaker to speed up or slow down, and other ways to interact. Zoom has several features that aren't strictly necessary but make video calls more enjoyable.
They include Video Filters, Virtual Backgrounds, Touch Up My Appearance, integration with game apps, and a new Avatar option that lets you replace your own head with that of a cartoon animal in beta as of this writing. Some of these features really are just for fun, though I'd argue that Virtual Backgrounds, which includes the ability to blur your background, is in fact an important privacy option.
When taking video calls from a location where you don't want the other participants to have deep insight into your surroundings, it's important to be able to still have the option to show your face without showing everything else around you.
This feature softens skin and hair to smooth over wrinkles, dimples, pimples, and the like. In the desktop app, a slider lets you decide how soft a focus you want. The image above shows the touch-up completely off left and at about the halfway point right. In my case, cranking up the filter to full capacity wipes aways all my freckles. Whether that's the result you want is up to you. A few other special features in Zoom focus more on utility.
The ability to assign a co-host to a meeting, for example, makes it easy to share responsibilities for managing the meeting and participants. Desktop sharing, also known as screen sharing, works well and supports multiple monitors. In the same vein as having a co-host to share responsibilities, you can start a screen sharing session and hand over controls of your keyboard and mouse to someone else on the call. It's a nice way to have students engage with material or let someone else move your slides while you give a presentation.
I used this feature to let my young niece design a pair of sneakers that I bought her as a gift. She was able to fully control my computer to design the shoes, and then I reclaimed control to make the purchase. You can also set up a side-by-side screen share of your desktop and someone else's, a handy way to literally compare notes.
During any screen sharing session, participants and the host can annotate and mark up whatever's on the screen. Zoom Meetings also has a collaborative whiteboard you can use to brainstorm or map out ideas. Breakout rooms are another wonderful feature, especially for student groups and remote teams. During a meeting, you can assign participants to groups or let them select the group they want and send them into their own private video chat.
When finished, everyone can easily reconvene in the main video call.
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