Luis Alvarez Talks Tech: Unlimited Zoom Thanksgiving
During Thanksgiving 2020, due to the pandemic, many people chose to stay home and avoid large gatherings or even celebrating the day with close family and friends. Instead, they relied on Zoom to talk to Grandma and Aunt Betty. And, thankfully, they got more time than the standard 40 minutes. Zoom has a paid version that offers unlimited time on Zoom. However, the free version limits meetings to only 40 minutes.
In a gesture of goodwill, Zoom decided to abandon this standard for Thanksgiving Day and offer unlimited Zoom calls to everyone. According to Luis Alvarez, “Zoom realized so many families are separated rather than together… so they removed that limitation from the free version.” Luis Alvarez goes on to explain that Zoom has also improved its security. Before now, only the paid version of Zoom was encrypted. Now the free version has the same level of security as the paid version. Zoom has also added a new security feature — the At Risk Meeting Notifier. This new feature scans public posts and social media to see if someone has stolen your Zoom meeting link and posted it publicly. If your meeting info is stolen, someone can just barge in uninvited. However, if any of your meeting links are publicly published, Zoom will alert you, and then you can take the necessary action.
Now the question is will Zoom do the same for Christmas? Yes! Zoom recently announced the dates and times for unlimited Zoom meetings as followed:
- 10 a.m. ET, Thursday, Dec. 17, to 6 a.m. ET, Saturday, Dec. 19
- 10 a.m. ET, Wednesday, Dec. 23, to 6 a.m. ET, Saturday, Dec. 26
- 10 a.m. ET, on Wednesday, Dec. 30, to 6 a.m. ET, on Saturday, Jan. 2
Not only does this help friends and family come together, but it’s also great PR for Zoom, who has done well during the pandemic with schools and businesses using the platform for learning and communication. While the pandemic continues to affect day-to-day life, Zoom calls will be a regular part of life and the holidays.
