Improved Hangouts is one of the most common requests from Android users. According to a rumor late last year, Google is working on making it a better chat client by removing SMS capabilities. It now appears that as a part of that Hangouts will use a peer-to-peer connection when possible.
Following a Reddit AMA on government surveillance, Google has admitted that while it does encrypt Hangouts conversations, it does not use end-to-end encryption, meaning the company itself can tap into those sessions when it receives a government court order requiring it to do so. This contrasts with the end-to-end encryption used by some services, like Apple’s FaceTime, which cannot be tapped even by the company offering the service.
Motherboard noted that Google has always been vague about the level of encryption offered for Google Hangouts, and that when pressed by principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union Christopher Soghoian, the company would say only that messages were encrypted “in transit” …
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You’ve long been able to share your location with contacts in Hangouts chats, but the Google Hangouts for Android app is today getting a little smarter, noting when someone has asked where you are and automatically prompting you to share your location on a map.
Google indicates that this is merely the first step in building more intelligence into the app, describing it as “the start of something new.” Future versions of the app are thus likely to recognize more questions, offering the ability to answer them with a single tap.
The latest update to the app – which is rolling out during the course of the day – also offers a number of other new features …
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