Google has released new updates to Google Slides and Google Keep, two of its more well-known apps which are used for creating presentations and handy little notes.
The bigger update is announced for Google Slides, which now lets users stream their presentations online via Google Hangouts. This is not the first time users can present their slides through a video call, but this is the first time users can actually do using a mobile device.
Using any Android smartphone or tablet, users can now present to coworkers, business partners, clients or students even when they are not in the same room. As Feril Shah, software engineer at Google, says, this is a particularly helpful way for others to "see your ideas, even if they are on the other side of the planet."
To make a Slides presentation over Hangouts during a video call, users simply need to tap the Present button in Slides and choose the option to present in Hangouts. This will also extract information from the user's Calendar app so that meetings that are scheduled for that time show up.
Before starting a presentation, users can see who are present in the call. While doing the presentation, users can still do as they please on Slides. They can move between slides, view their speaker notes and use a timer to make sure they are not going over their allotted time period to present.
Currently, the update for Slides is only available for Android devices, but it looks like Google will also be releasing the same features for iOS. The update is rolling out from the Play Store to all devices, so some people should not be surprised if they do not receive it right away.
Meanwhile, Google Keep also received its own update that lets users export their Keep notes to Google Docs. This feature is already available in the desktop version of Google Keep, but Google is now extending the functionality to mobile devices.
With the update, users can now export their notes, which are often taken in haste, and transfer them over to Google Docs, where they can transform the notes into full-blown text documents and share it with others to edit.
To do so, users can simply select the note they want to export, open the overflow menu and tap Copy to Google Doc.
Here's a quick look at how the updated Google Slides works over Hangouts.
