Another key aspect of Hangouts, demoed at Google’s I/O conference earlier today, is the possibility of syncing notifications across devices: instead of buzzing multiple devices for a message that’s already been read somewhere else, Google will try to sync every Hangouts notification on mobile devices and the web (Hangouts is also available through Google+ and Gmail). While other messaging services such as WhatsApp, Apple’s iMessage, or Facebook Messenger focus on either text or static media, Google promises to leverage its experience with Talk and Google+ to provide a solution that encompasses all kinds of messages, including live video. With Hangouts, users will be able to access their full history of conversations on any device, an option that can be turned off. The new Hangouts will unify Google Talk and Google+ messages under a single service, storing conversations in the cloud. A free service that includes text, photo, and video messaging, Hangouts is a rebrand of Google’s former video-chat service for Google+. Rumored for the past few months, Google has today announced its new unified messaging system for iOS, Android, and web called “Hangouts”.
