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Microsoft Businesses

Microsoft Teams Launches For Friends and Family With Free All-Day Video Calling (theverge.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft is launching the personal version of Microsoft Teams today. After previewing the service nearly a year ago, Microsoft Teams is now available for free personal use amongst friends and families. From a report: The service itself is almost identical to the Microsoft Teams that businesses use, and it will allow people to chat, video call, and share calendars, locations, and files easily. Microsoft is also continuing to offer everyone free 24-hour video calls that it introduced in the preview version in November. You'll be able to meet up with up to 300 people in video calls that can last for 24 hours. Microsoft will eventually enforce limits of 60 minutes for group calls of up to 100 people after the pandemic, but keep 24 hours for 1:1 calls. While the preview initially launched on iOS and Android, Microsoft Teams for personal use now works across the web, mobile, and desktop apps. Microsoft is also allowing Teams personal users to enable its Together mode -- a feature that uses AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you together with other people in a virtual space. Skype got this same feature back in December.
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Microsoft Teams Launches For Friends and Family With Free All-Day Video Calling More

Microsoft Teams Launches For Friends and Family With Free All-Day Video Calling

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  • Have they fixed the major issue yet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:14AM (#61393398)

    Currently you can't copy email addresses from Outlook to Teams: Outlook always copies the address in the form "name [email@domain.country]" (with angle brackets, which I can't type here of course), which Teams doesn't understand, so every time you have to edit the address after pasting in Teams.
    This lack of interoperability is incredibly irritating.

    • Re:Have they fixed the major issue yet? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:37AM (#61393468) Journal

      Another major issue, you can't save a document from Teams anywhere except Downloads, AND you can't rename the document on the fly. You have to wait unitl it's placed where Microsoft tells you before you can change the name.

      Every other Microsoft program allows you to determine where to save something and the ability to rename it. Not Teams.

      • Maybe it has to do with the fact that Teams is an Electron app (Does it sound like I hate Electron-based applications? I actually do)

      • Another major issue, you can't save a document from Teams anywhere except Downloads, AND you can't rename the document on the fly. You have to wait unitl it's placed where Microsoft tells you before you can change the name.

        Every other Microsoft program allows you to determine where to save something and the ability to rename it. Not Teams.

        Document management in Teams is a load of shit in both directions. If you use the Copy/Move function within a Team it doesn't actually refresh the file list either. So when you duplicate a file you need to back out of the folder and go back in in order to see it.

        That at least is a real issue. I'm not sure what the OP's problem is with email, but likely that one could be solved by his IT department.

      • Also, Teams is not Slack. No matter how much Microsoft want you to use it, including giving it away, it's not going to change the fact that the world has decided on an IRC-with-a-GUI, and it's Slack, not Teams. Even within Microsoft there are whole swathes of people who use Slack because Teams sucks so hard while Slack sucks a lot less.

    • Re:Have they fixed the major issue yet? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:51AM (#61393522)

      My biggest complains are the following.
      1. I no longer have real full screen mode. Kinda annoying for face to face chat, but when someone is sharing their screen, to have equal resolutions displays squished for the viewer is annoying.

      2. Being able to set a PowerPoint as your background image. I would love to weatherman style a PowerPoint presentation.

      3. Put your face on a loop. So if you need to get up, you are not distracting people with your movements, or your video feed disappearing for a few seconds.

      4. The ability to arrange the order of participants.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      try &lt; and &gt; to do < > . On apple devices I have to do &quot; a lot to avoid screwed up characters. total PITA

    • (with angle brackets, which I can't type here of course)

      <<<You can't? That's awful.>>>

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      with angle brackets, which I can't type here of course

      I feel like at some point in the past, a lot more people on /. knew how to use computers

      Anyhow, that's not really a Teams problem now is it? That's Outlook. It's equally annoying when you want to copy the email into any other program that just wants an email address. What you want to do is select "open contact card" from that first context menu. Another card opens in-line from which you can right click and "copy email address" directly from the contact c

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sparks ( 7204 ) *

        > Anyhow, that's not really a Teams problem now is it? That's Outlook.

        Full name <actual.address@company.com> ...is a standard way of representing email addresses. For once, it's not Outlook's fault.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jrumney ( 197329 )

      Not to mention the basic UI violations like pressing the close button on the chat window exits the entire application even if you have a call ongoing in a separate window.

    • which Teams doesn't understand

      Aside from the fact that Teams actually does understand that just fine, why are you copying and pasting at all? Right click the email in outlook and click the chat icon?

      If your problem is real (for you), and/or the above suggestion doesn't work for you, have you considered firing your incompetent IT department?

      • Tried again just now: Teams does not understand emails in that format when you're inviting someone outside your organization. It only works when the address is within your organization.

        The use case is creating a Teams meeting.

        • Oh the case use is far larger than that. Simply opening a chat for an external party is a pain. Yeah I see it now, but the reality is the problem here is FAR deeper than simply not understanding the email. The entire system of federation between organisations and how the emails and contacts link between them is fundamentally broken.

          I work a lot with contractors and it's a complete PITA. Oh you're in a call with someone? It would be a shame if you're in different organisations and suddenly can't invite a 3rd

  • ... who has and hasn't been mircrochipped. Study it out!

  • Are calls archived? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MooseTick ( 895855 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:27AM (#61393438) Homepage

    Is the chance greater than zero that the calls can be archived/recorded without the user's knowledge?

  • How about Linux support? (Score:3)

    by Murdoch5 ( 1563847 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:32AM (#61393456) Homepage
    Teams on Windows is rough, but on Linux it's just a flaming dumpster fire. I updated Teams 10 minutes ago, and it's already crashed once, locked up once, hit a login loop, and it now consuming 600MB of memory doing nothing. In order to quit the application I had to use the terminal because it "closed" itself, but didn't provide a way to re-open itself.

    This is the work version of Teams that should be stable enough for all day hard use but can barely function, and if your workhorse version is this poor, why would anyone trust the personal version?

    Has anyone used the "together" functionality in Skype? It's a joke, not only doesn't it work properly, it's so glitchy that you risk crashing Skype by using the feature.

    We could go into the massive issues with Skype, which still doesn't work on Linux, but lets stick to Teams, because now Microsoft has released two different communication platforms and both don't work. Is it to much to ask for that we get one working Microsoft communication platform for Linux?

    • Re:How about Linux support? (Score:4, Funny)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:42AM (#61393488) Homepage Journal

      > two different communication platforms and both don't work

      Thereby 'proving' that Linux really isn't ready for the office environment. Amirite?

      "DOS ain't done 'till Lotus won't run!" - Bill Gates

      "I can buy anything in the world but Jeffrey Epstein provides me with things I can't buy." - also Bill Gates

      "Is orange a good color on me?" - soon Bill Gates

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xxdelxx ( 551872 )

      Is it to much to ask for that we get one working Microsoft communication platform for Linux?

      Yes. And to answer the obvious next questions water is still wet and at last check the pope continues to be Catholic.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 )
      what about just using chrome and the office.com web versions? Do they work?
      • Sometimes, but you first have to disable most of the security plugins, and then change your browser settings to allow the flood of cookies and other trackers. The funny thing is Microsoft could invest a few coop students to fix all the issues, which for them would cost almost nothing. The latest problem with Skype is the "Share Screen" button is missing, which is rather important in a communication platform.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I've heard on and off about people having stability with it, but I've just never found it. I've tried Teams on multiple distro's multiple version of distro's, and multiple computers and it's always just a POS.

        The web interface does work, but first I have to disable some security plugins, and then allow a bunch of cookies, which if it's forced is fine, but it's not a good way to run the application long term. The ideal would be for them to make a QT, GTK and X interface so we get native support and then
        • My luck with Teams on Chrome on Linux is pretty good, in fact I'm not sure I share your desire for a QT/GTK version. It will always be a stepchild, whereas a lot of people (not just Linux users) want the web version to function well.
          • The benefit is to get rid of Electron, which is fine but it's not great. Hell I'd go for a nice TUI over Electron if it were available :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jabuzz ( 182671 )

        On Ubuntu 20.10 (because when I installed on my PN50 20.04 was on 5.8 kernel which is needed to support the graphics on a 4x00U chip, then a few weeks later they upped the kernel in 20.04).
        Anyway worked fine for months. However there was an update about a month ago and now sound does not work on a video call. Works just fine in a test call, but an actual call nada nothing at either end. Fortunately Zoom works just fine.

        However my biggest grip is the only way to control what virtual desktop/workspace it is o

  • "Free" = "mess" in MS-speak (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @11:52AM (#61393526) Journal

    Microsoft has to give Teams and SharePoint away free with other products to get people to use them. They are jumbled messes that few would actually pay for if a stand-alone product. They are like bunches of sub-products forced together under a single name. They clearly lack anything close to Steve Job's eye for factoring and simplicity.

    For example, why are their URL's so damned long for a given content item (page)? It should be like "ourdomain/teams?itemID=1234" but instead is this convoluted stream of about 300 characters. The necessary data and meta-data should be in a database that can be looked up via the ID, not in the URL itself. (Okay, maybe cloud-ness is smoother with GUID's, but even those are only about 30 characters.)

    • For example, why are their URL's so damned long for a given content item (page)?

      Of all the things to complain about in that flaming heap of utter trash you chose the length of a URL....

      The priorities of people fascinate me. XD

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        It was just one off the top of my head. You are welcome to add your own peeves.

        • Gladly, but I think even Slashdot has a word limit :-)

          But my big ones are the way that federation is done between companies making it difficult to communicate with others, hard to find them, chat features may or may not work such as the ability to make a conference call if talking to someone outside of the organisation, the act of logging into a foreign team logs you out of your own team making it impossible to look for a file in the middle of a call unless you start the application twice, you can't start t

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Tablizer ( 95088 )

            making it impossible to look for a file in the middle of a call unless you start the application twice, you can't start the application twice

            There is a pattern to much of these: things you expect would be there are not when you go to do them. On the desktop we expect easy task switching. But one finds out Teams lacks it when they go to do it. I would expect a text editor for TXT files, for example. Not! One has to download to desktop, edit, and re-upload. It's not like plain text editors require rocket sci

  • Will they still be funneling all calls through to the NSA server farm at Camp Williams in Utah?

  • I never understood why Teams isn't a part of the base level Home 365 subscription service.

  • Teams is supposed to be for business and that is used as the explanation around the horrible calendar integration, inability to add people to meetings by lists of e-mails or copy paste (without clicking again to select a team member), especially it's lack of annotation that even is already built into quick assist, another Microsoft product, it's horrible browser interface where you can't select to see all people at once (only the person talking shows up). And yet, rather than improving what they have they
    • I use it in a corporate setting and Teams updates quite often. I'm pretty sure Microsoft sees it as something important for the coming era where teleworking is going to be much more common than before.
      OTOH I'm not sure if, and how much, it being an Electron application limits what they can do with it.
      All of the ones I've used seem to be pretty heavy (on both CPU and RAM). It's funny because it's the same criticism Java (deservedly) got back when it was new. But I have the impression that Electron apps man

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jeremyp ( 130771 )

        I don't know about Electron apps generally but Teams is definitely a resource hog (at least on a Mac). I can't hear what other people are saying over the sound of my own fans. I'd like to say it's the fault of Electron as Electron "combines the Chromium rendering engine and the Node.js runtime" according to Wikipedia but several other apps I use also use Electron and none of them ever try to melt my laptop.

  • Zoom (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Subm ( 79417 ) on Monday May 17, 2021 @02:49PM (#61394172)

    I wonder who the genius was at Microsoft who decided to let the pandemic pass without acting, then to introduce a copycat to what the entire world was using for over a year.

    I guess Zoom was named after the noise they made while passing Microsoft like they were standing still.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by xlsior ( 524145 )

      I wonder who the genius was at Microsoft who decided to let the pandemic pass without acting, then to introduce a copycat to what the entire world was using for over a year.

      I guess Zoom was named after the noise they made while passing Microsoft like they were standing still.

      It's been their standard operating mode for decades now -- release a substandard copy of an already popular product that's been around for a couple of years. the MS version will be almost as good, won't be interoperable with the prevailing standard, and will only be a little more expensive.

      /Zune, multiple attempts at cell phones (Kin, Windows Mobile), Cortana smart speakers, Groove music, Windows RT /Just thing how embarrassing it must be, for a trillion dollar company with a desktop monopoly and STILL n

  • Are there any non-spyware alternatives that are not M$ or Zoom?

    • Jitsi?

  • I am using teams from few months now and I don't like it much. I think skype was much better

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