The dust has now settled in Zoomtopia 2021, with a host of announcements coming out of the virtual event.
We’ve rounded up the biggest news from Zoom’s Imaginarium.
Zoom Video Engagement Center
Zoom announced a bold entrance into the customer experience industry earlier this year, with the proposed acquisition of Five9. The deal is yet to be approved by shareholders and regulatory bodies, but that hasn't stopped Zoom from making further inroads into new territory.
The Zoom Video Engagement Center (VEC) is designed to, as it says on the tin, bring video to client interaction. It is built on the same technology used to power Zoom's video meetings and will be built with individual use cases in mind.
VEC will launch in early 2022.
Zoom Whiteboard - with Oculus Support
Zoom revealed the early information of an all-new whiteboard that is designed as a digital canvas and virtual hub for both real-time and asynchronous collaboration. Its persistent natural means that progress is always saved and can be returned to at a later date.
Zoom Whiteboard can be launched via both the Zoom client and through a web browse, and can also be used whilst in a Zoom Meeting or a Zoom Room.
Jeff Smith, head of Zoom Rooms, said:
“It’s persistent collaboration using powerful tools on any device, so your teams have the creative space to work together, wherever”
A more surprising announcement came in the form of a partnership with Oculus and Facebook, that will see the new Zoom Whiteboard integrated with Horizon Workrooms.
Launched in August, Horizon Workrooms is a virtual meeting space in which participants appear as avatars and can collaborate on digital whiteboards and documents.
Virtual whiteboarding meet virtual reality. 🤝 Together with @Facebook, we are bringing meetings and whiteboard into the VR space using @oculus Quest 2 headsets for the ultimate collaborative experience. https://t.co/QJKfVacdII pic.twitter.com/zwMKyk9dak
— Zoom (@Zoom) September 13, 2021
Enhanced Encryption and Security
Zoom revealed a host of cybersecurity updates for its platform, stretching across encryption, identity and bring your own key (BYOK).
For encryption: end-to-end encryption (E2EE) will soon be added to Zoom Phone one-to-one calls that are carried out via the Zoom client. This comes after E2EE was added to Zoom meetings last year.
Elsewhere, Zoom has partnered with Okta to help verify users as they join meetings. The identity verification programme users multi-factor authentication and relies on certain criteria to validate users.
Nitasha Walia, Group Product Manager for Zoom Meetings, said:
“In a world of deep fakes and identity thefts, it is becoming increasingly important to verify the user’s identity"
Zoom has also partnered with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to bring BYOK to customers with strict compliance.
BYOK lets customers manage their own key management system within AWS, with Zoom not having access to the master key. Zoom will then interact with the customer’s key system for encryption and decryption.
New Translation and Transcription
Zoom said that it would be expanding the languages of both its translations and transcription services up to 12 and 30 languages respectively.
The services are powered, in part, by technology that Zoom procured through the acquisition of Germany-based Kites.
