 A favorite video conferencing software in 2020 has a new update and it has some really cool features. Let's check them out. First, make sure that your zoom client is updated to the latest version. To check whether you are running the latest version of zoom, you can click on your profile picture over here and click check for updates. In my case, as you can see, I am already running the latest version of zoom which is 5.2. If you are running an older version, you will be instructed to upgrade. Now that we have the latest version of zoom installed on our PC, let's look at what are the updates available for us. I have gone through the updates and I have highlighted the ones that I think are significant and the ones that I will demonstrate now. The first one is show annotators name by default. Let's say I'm sharing my whiteboard and I do that by clicking on the share screen and choose whiteboard option. Using the whiteboard tools, I can create objects on the screen, maybe type something also. The participants can also draw on this whiteboard. For example, if I want to know who scribbled this, I can simply click on select and choose the object. Here it shows me that this object was created by John Smith. If I click on this object, it shows me it was created by me. So I can clearly identify who created what on this whiteboard. If you are a teacher in a classroom, you can now easily identify which students did what. The next update is for those who love Instagram filters, let's see what they are. When you click the arrow next to the video icon, we have a new feature called video filters. And if I click on that, we can see that zoom has bundled a number of filters that you can play around with. For example, you can make yourself appear on a TV and this is what it looks like in zoom. You can also apply facial filters if that's your thing, like a mustache. When you want to remove the filters, just click none. I'm sure many of you all will have fun playing with the filters. The next feature is the one that has got me really excited because I do a lot of PowerPoint presentations. And now you can use PowerPoint as a virtual background and it looks absolutely cool. Let's check it out. When you share a PowerPoint presentation in Zoom, the PowerPoint takes up the entire screen and your video appears as a small video in a corner. When you click on the share screen, we have a new feature called advanced PowerPoint as virtual background. The feature is still in beta mode, which means it is still being tested by Zoom. But if you want to try it out, click PowerPoint as virtual background and click share. Select the file from your computer, let's say from my desktop, choose the PowerPoint and click open. You will now notice that my video is appearing on the bottom right corner. The cool part is I can click on it and I can move it around. I can resize it to make it bigger and now the audience will be able to view both the PowerPoint and my camera view in one screen. This is amazing. To get the best out of this feature, you will have to start designing your PowerPoint in a way that you can visualize where your camera will be superimposed on top of the PowerPoint. The last two features are enhancements to existing features. Zoom already had a feature to touch up our appearance. Now you can change the intensity of how much that filter should be applied and finally it has added a feature to adjust the video brightness. Let's check them out. If I click on the arrow next to the video icon and click on video settings, now I can change the intensity of the touch up. For example, I can increase which makes it look very artificial or decrease it so that it looks more natural. You can play around with it to decide what looks good for you. And the last one is a feature that allows you to adjust your brightness in case you don't have sufficient lighting in your room. You click on it and it will try to adjust the brightness. The brightness can be adjusted automatically which is what I recommend or you can even go manually and brighten it up till you find the right brightness for your video. So those were some of the cool features that have been introduced in the Zoom version 5.2 which is your favorite. Leave a comment below.