One of the best Microsoft Teams features is coming to more users
Background effects will soon be available to more virtual desktop users
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Microsoftis readying an update forcollaboration platformTeams that will bring one of the most popular features to a wider pool of users.
As per twonew entriesin theMicrosoft 365product roadmap, Microsoft is extending the ability to replace and blur the background of a video call to people running onvirtual desktopsfrom Citrix and VMware.
The update is currently under development, but should begin to roll out to relevantMicrosoft Teamsusers at some point next month.
Microsoft Teams backgrounds
Since the transition toremote working, practically all majorvideo conferencingvendors have rolled outvirtual backgroundfunctionality, which allows users to block out the room behind them with an overlay of their choice.
A more subtle option is to blur the background, which has the double effect of obscuring anything incriminating that might be laying around a bedroom or home office and focusing the attention on the person’s face.
Although Microsoft Teams has offered such a feature for a while now, it has traditionally been available to users of its desktop and mobile clients only.
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After bringing background effects to the web client and those running Teams on Azure Virtual Desktop or Windows 365 earlier this year, the feature will now be made available to users of Citrix and VMware virtual desktops too.
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The broad objective is to ensure the meeting experience is consistent for all Microsoft Teams users, no matter which client or hardware they are using the dial in.
Beyond the virtual backgrounds feature, Microsoft has made a number of recent additions to Teams with this goal in mind, including the ability tobenefit from end-to-end encryptionwhen dialling in from the office,combine work and business accountsandaccess screen-sharing controlsacross all clients.
Joel Khalili is the News and Features Editor at TechRadar Pro, covering cybersecurity, data privacy, cloud, AI, blockchain, internet infrastructure, 5G, data storage and computing. He’s responsible for curating our news content, as well as commissioning and producing features on the technologies that are transforming the way the world does business.
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