Telegram will soon be rolling out its own video conferencing service that promises to be just as secure as its encrypted messaging app.
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In a post on his own personal Telegram channel, the company's founder Pavel Durov explained how the service aims to improve upon existing video conferencing solutions, saying:
“Speaking of video calls, we will be adding a video dimension to our voice chats in May, making Telegram a powerful platform for group video calls. Screen sharing, encryption, noise-cancellation, desktop and tablet support – everything you can expect from a modern video conferencing tool, but with Telegram-level UI, speed and encryption. Stay tuned!”
Better late than never
With more people working from home than ever before, video conferencing software has seen a boom over the past year with Zoom, Google Meet and Microsoft Teams garnering the most attention. However, messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Discord, WhatsApp and others have also been used for video calls.
Telegram just added the ability to make one-on-one video calls using its platform back in August of last year and at that time, group video calls weren't supported. In a blog post published last April, the company compared the popularity of video calls in 2020 to messaging in 2013. However, Telegram was quick to point out how important security is for group video calls and that could be why it has waited so long to add the feature.
Beginning next month though, Telegram users will be able to participate in group video calls as well as video conferencing with others using the service.
While we don't yet know how this feature will work or look, Durov did mention encryption, noise-cancellation and desktop and tablet support in his post. The added security that Telegram intends to bring to video conferencing could entice users to test out the feature once it goes live but we'll have to wait and see whether or not it catches on.
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Via TechCrunch
