The Future of Google Hangouts: All HD, Business Version

Google is working on major upgrades to its video Hangouts, shifting them to a different standard to better handle high-definition video. It's also working on a formal enterprise offering of the service, which would directly challenge existing videoconferencing services from Cisco, Polycom and others.

There's little detail about what the business-focused version of Hangouts would offer, but it will integrate technology from Vidyo, a Google partner. Vidyo has been working with Google on videoconferencing tech since the company introduced Hangouts as part of the Google+ rollout in 2011 and even before that with Google Talk's video chats. Vidyo announced Wednesday it is working with Google to "further optimize" Hangouts for enterprise users. Read more...