April 1, 2010 by Andre
Users of iGoogle, the personalised Google homepage, and Orkut chat will now be able to share documents, pictures and other files directly with friends whilst chatting in iGoogle or Orkut.
The way it was setup before was quite awkward, making the user have to switch to the Google e-mail client to send a file as an attachment. It is not the most ground breaking feature as users of Microsoft’s messenger program and AIM have been able to do this for years, but for anyone that has a preference for Orkut and iGoogle for chatting to their friends will see this as a welcome update.
The file transfer feature will work directly as part of the browser so nothing needs to be installed to the computer. They have made it as simple as possible so that all that needs to be done is to start a conversation with a friend, you then click to send them a file and that’s that, pretty much the same procedure as with MSN messenger.
New phone and camera icons are situated at the top of the chat window which allow users to conduct video and voice chats with their friends. Google have also added group chat feature which does exactly what it says on the tin.
All the user will require is a microphone and a webcam plus a download of a small plug-in application.
Google have also announced that they will be releasing a file transfer service for their e-mail client G-mail later in the year.
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