Jacob Smith ‘23
Professor Liaison Editor
Last Wednesday, Zoom announced a boatload of thrilling new features. The features are available as part of Zoom Prime, a service available for $3.99 a month or $49.99 a year. Zoom was planning to offer a limited number of free student licenses on a first-come, first-served basis, but, after consultation with the Virginia Department of Health, it clarified that individuals should not travel to Zoom.us without an official appointment or invitation. Instead, they should fill out a 190-question survey available on the Department of Health’s website so free licenses can be reserved for those at higher risk of Zoom fatigue. Still, even if you do not qualify for a free license, Zoom Prime is well worth the price given its cutting-edge features.
Custom Muting
Finally giving into pressure from thousands of students, Zoom Premium will now allow users to mute any other call participant. Students can simply right-click on the participant’s tile and select “mute.” Another option is “mute video,” which blacks out the participant’s video for you, just as if they didn’t have their camera on.
So far, custom audio and video muting has been by far the most popular new feature. “I honestly couldn’t be happier,” Will Parry ’22 said. “I mean, every now and then my Zoom will just go quiet, and then I’ll sit back and check Instagram. I know it’s a gunner, and I know their question would do absolutely nothing to help me learn, so I just don’t want to hear it, you know?” Another student said it was a great relief not having to see her ex during class.
Filters and Clips
Basic Zoom allows users to apply filters to their own video, just like other social media platforms. This myopic approach ignored several unique features common to most Zoom calls—soul-crushing boredom, the need to seem “professional,” and unprecedented access to live video footage of dozens of one’s closest friends and enemies. Only the shameless or clueless show up in a cat filter, but privately tormenting the video feeds of other participants is much more fun.
Zoom Prime fixes this. Participants can now apply hundreds of filters to other participants’ videos. Students can amuse themselves by depicting others as vegetables or felines. New-every-week “mystery filters” will analyze another user’s facial expressions and background to provide even more entertainment. What kind of bagel is that crusty professor? What Hogwarts house does your Zoom crush belong to? No need to spend ten minutes filling out a BuzzFeed quiz. Zoom Prime will provide just as much accuracy based on five seconds of their webcam feed—even if it’s turned off.
Even better, Zoom has taken a page out of Twitch’s book and now allows students to share Zoom clips of another participant’s filtered video to social media. Want to show the world what your professor looks like as a potato? Now you can. Did a student say something vaguely controversial? Post it to Reddit and let the Internet decide.
Pictured: This could be you, now with Zoom Prime! Photo Courtesy of NBC.com.
Custom Music
Brave Zoomers have long known that a good smooth jazz playlist is what you need to spice up Property and that string quartet sonatas can work wonders for Federal Courts. Zoom has finally picked up on this trend. Zoom Prime now comes with a Spotify plugin that allows students to select music to accompany an online class. The plugin even comes with an experimental matching algorithm that will select custom songs based on a professor’s tempo, tone, and vocabulary. The plugin still seems to need some work, however, as during Constitutional Law classes it just plays “Free Bird” over and over again.
Mosaic Movies
Photo mosaics arrange many small photos to depict one bigger photo. Now Zoom is bringing this technology to online video conferencing. Just upload a photo, or find one on the Internet, and Zoom Prime will rearrange and style your video tiles to show that picture. Zoom Prime users can even link up video streaming services so they can watch shows or sports mosaic fashion while still catching every expression on their professor’s face. “Some of my colleagues dislike it,” Professor Mary Malone said. “But I get it, students are going to watch Netflix. At least this way they’re still tuned in to class, so if I really need their attention I can wave my arms.”
What’s Next
Although Zoom Prime adds a few useful features, Zoom is still working on some more basic issues. For example, Zoom Prime still does not allow users to move videos around when someone has their hand raised or when non-video participants are hidden. Zoom public relations specialist Carlo Boreal explained by email that solving these problems is a difficult task, but he wanted to assure users that Zoom physicists are hard at work at the necessary research into parallel universes, dark matter, and subatomic particles.
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js3hp@virginia.edu