Google Updates Hangouts to full Phone and Broadcast functionality

Immediately after launching Google+ and appearing very much to be pretty dern serious about this whole video chat thing, Google was asked by a whole network of new users when they'd be able to use Hangouts on their phone. That time is now, as it were, and all you've got to do to work with this new functionality is find (or start) a Hangout by hitting the "Join" button as it appears in your Google+ stream. Once there, you'll find a lovely new interface that simply includes the people you're hanging out with as icons along the top of your screen, your face in a small box in the lower right-hand corner, and whoever is speaking at the moment front and center. This phone-based Hangouts ability works on devices with a front-facing camera and Android 2.3 Gingerbread or higher.

Note here, before we go on, that you'll need the official Google+ app to work with these abilities on your smartphone. It's free on the Android Market.

One of the only reasons we can see that every single web-based business in the world hasn't adopted Hangouts for meetings across the earth is the fact that they've up until now not featured any screen-sharing abilities. Now one presenter can show the things that are going on on their own computer's display while others are able to watch. This should bump up meeting instances by about ten billion percent. Next to that is Sketchpad, a lovely in-Hangouts app that lets you and your friends draw together – this is also known as Exquisite Corpse, just fyi, a terrifying name for a really fun activity.

Then there's Google Docs, an in-web app that's been able to be worked on by multiple users for a while now, pulled into Hangouts here so that you can also chat while you're all working on a paper together. Named Hangouts is last, this being the most simple addition to the fold, you're ability to simply slap a name on the room you're creating for more interesting and a whole lot less random joiners in the future. Make a room called SlashGear, for goodness sake!

These four additions are still under construction, but can be tested by you by simply clicking the "Try Hangouts with extras" button in your Hangouts screen.