Google releases Duo video calling app
Google has made its Duo video calling app available for Android and iOS.
The company said users only need a phone number to sign up, and that the app would be rolled out globally in the coming days.
Duo was previewed at Googe I/O in May alongside an instant messaging app called Allo. Whereas Allo makes use of a serverside machine-learning assistant and therefore requires the decryption of communications to allow the assistant to work, Google boasts that Duo is more secure.
"We built Duo with an emphasis on privacy and security, and all Duo calls are end-to-end encrypted," the company said in a blog post.
The app is built on WebRTC with a protocol called QUIC to speed up video transmission, with Google saying that video calls will be able to switch between Wi-Fi and mobile data without dropping out.
In recent days, Google has been casting some of its products and features overboard, with its Hangouts On Air feature on Google+ being subsumed into YouTube live.
It also recently removed the requirement for users to have a Google+ account to post app reviews in the Google Play store.