Discord’s Voice Chat Function Finally Coming To Xbox Consoles

Discord has announced that local and cross-platform voice chat is finally coming to Microsoft gaming consoles, namely the Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One. Though not widely rolled out just yet, the feature is now available to testers under the Xbox Insiders program.

At its current state, the platform only offers limited functionalities on Xbox consoles – with its key feature, voice chats, missing entirely. One way to remedy this is by initiating or joining calls via the Discord app on your smartphone, but that also means you’ll be relying on multiple audio sources for the session – one for game audio and another for tuning in to voice chats, which is doable but not too practical.

The upcoming Discord voice call functionality that’s coming to the console, however, is not as straightforward as most users would’ve hoped. The long and short of it, this new ability is somewhat an improvement to the solution we’ve mentioned above, sans the need for an extra audio source for the experience. You are required to have the Xbox mobile app installed on your smartphone though, as it will be the platform that bridges Discord’s voice chat to your Xbox console.

First, you need to connect your Discord and Xbox accounts on both the former and latter’s apps. Even if you’ve already done so in the past, Discord notes that you’ll have to relink them again when this new feature is available. Once that’s done, initiate or join a call via the Discord app and tap “transfer to Xbox.” Activating this will then automatically bring up the Xbox app, where you’re required to confirm the process.

From here, both input and output for voice chats are handled directly by your Xbox console, provided that the device and your smartphone are connected to the internet. The platform adds that you can transfer calls from desktop or web clients to your Xbox console as well.

“While you are playing on your console, you will be able to see who is on the call and speaking,” explains Xbox principal program manager Eric Voreis via an official news release. “You’ll also be able to adjust the sound, and switch between Discord Voice and Xbox game chat.”

Both Microsoft and Discord say the new voice chat feature will expand to more testers in the coming weeks. Seeing that the former’s testing period often spans a couple of weeks to even months, it might take a while for it to be widely available to all Xbox users.

WhatsApp Reportedly Adding Pause And Resume Functions To Voice Notes

WhatsApp is working on yet another new feature for its mobile app, this time on one that enhances the voice recording experience. On top of receiving new timestamp transcriptions (a new addition which we’ve covered previously), the in-app voice notes feature will reportedly be getting the ability to pause and resume a recording.

A preview from WABetaInfo shows that the voice note interface seems to be overhauled. Instead of the current UI where users are required to hold the record button and slide to cancel, it now features a new “Stop” button when a voice recording is being conducted.  This enables recordings to be paused and later stitched together as a single continuous track, which is quite useful as you won’t need to send multiple voice messages in case you need to stop in the middle of recording.

WABetaInfo claims that this feature is still under development, and that it will eventually be rolled out to both iOS and Android devices that are opted-in to their beta programme on Play Store and TestFlight. Since the preview obtained is based on the iOS version, it is possible that the feature will first come to iPhone betas before being rolled out on Android.

WhatsApp has been developing multiple new features for the platform, with some have already been released on the public beta – such as the multi-device function, which lets up to four devices use the same account without being connected to your phone. Other than that, there is also a feature that lets you choose a default length for the app’s disappearing messages feature.

Facebook Adds End-To-End Encryption To Voice And Video Calls On Messenger

Facebook has announced that it has introduced new end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to enhance privacy for one-to-one voice and video calls on its Messenger platform. This expands on the messaging platform’s current encryption feature that has been implemented to its text chats since 2016 under the “Secret Conversation” option.

Although it is worth noting that the new E2EE feature for voice and video calls on Messenger would not be activated by default. Much like the existing one-to-one encrypted text messaging mode, users are required to manually opt into the feature when initiating a call with another person. Facebook is ensuring that all text and calls that are under E2EE are kept private between the user and the individual that they’re communicating with.

Introduced alongside encrypted voice and video calls is a minor update to its “disappearing messages” feature. This time around, users can choose to have chats designated as such to expire as soon as five seconds after it is viewed. Previously, disappearing messages can originally be set to vanish either after a minute or up to 24 hours. 

Additionally, Facebook also revealed that it is running a limited test for other encryption-based features to select users at this current time. These include E2EE enhanced group chats and calls between “friends and family that already have an existing chat thread or are already connected.” The social network says it is planning to implement the same limited test to Instagram’s direct messaging feature as well, but did not provide any further details regarding it.

Interestingly, Facebook also noted in its blog post that E2EE has become “the industry standard” for messaging services. However, despite characterising it as such, the company ironically continues to feature encrypted conversations as an opt-in experience on Messenger – unlike its subsidiary private messaging platform WhatsApp, which actually implements E2EE as a standard to chats since its launch.

WhatsApp Is Testing Voice Message Playback Speeds

Voice messages aren’t usually something that you’d think would need playback speed adjustments. But that’s exactly what WhatsApp is currently working on. Currently under development, it’s a feature that will be making its way into the app sometime in the future.

WABetaInfo reports that WhatsApp is working on giving voice messages three different playback speeds. The speeds will be indicated just below the sender’s profile picture accompanying the voice message. You have the default 1.0x speed, and you can speed things up to 1.5x or 2.0x. Oddly enough, WABetaInfo also mentions that WhatsApp “would also support lower playback speeds, but they won’t be released for the public because they make less sense”.

But to begin with, speeding up voice message speeds doesn’t make any more or less sense than slowing them down. Unless of course you have people in your WhatsApp contact list who love hitting the record button before actually figuring out what they want to say. Then the feature will be helpful in speeding up the filler words like “uh”, “um” and the sort. That, or if they just have a chronically slow taking speed.

At any rate, there’s no indication as to when WhatsApp plans to add the feature just yet. All we have is that they will be released in a future update, which WABetaInfo says will be in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp Desktop App Now Includes Video And Voice Call Support

WhatsApp, through its official blog, revealed that video and voice call support has been added to its desktop app on Windows and Mac platforms. As you may recall from our previous report, the new features first entered beta testing in December 2020, but were only made available for a small number of users.

Unfortunately, users of the web version of WhatsApp will be disappointed to know that the new video and voice call features have not been implemented just yet. It is not known when the company is planning to roll out the update for that particular platform.

Launching the new functions on desktop is similar to how it is done via the mobile version of WhatsApp. Simply open up a chat window and then click on either the video camera or phone icon on top to start the respective type of call. Video calls will pop out in a resizable window, and will always appear on top of any opened applications on screen. Of course, a webcam and/or microphone are required in order to initiate these calls.

However, the Facebook-owned messaging service noted that the new features are only available for individual chats, and would eventually be expanded to groups at a later time. A blunder on WhatsApp’s end, as this delay will definitely give rival platforms such as Zoom and Skype an advantage in terms of multi-user video conferencing.

Surprisingly, WhatsApp is still offering new quality-of-life features to its users, despite receiving a tremendous amount of backlash for its upcoming policy change. However, these new additions and a majority of the platform’s functionality will eventually be stripped off from those who insist on refusing to accept its new privacy changes by 15 May 2021.