Google launches Duo video chat app to compete with FaceTime and Skype

Knock, knock — Google’s video chatting app has arrived.

The app, Duo, represents Google’s response to other popular video calling options, including Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s Messenger app.

Duo isn’t much different from the other video chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse of who is making the call, helping the recipient decide whether to answer. Google calls this feature “Knock, knock.”

The new app, announced in May, is being released Tuesday as a free service for phones running on Google’s Android operating system as well as Apple’s iPhones.

Like FaceTime for iPhones, Duo requires only a person’s phone number to connect. Many other services require both participants to have account logins to use their video calling options.

Google has been offering video calling through its Hangouts service for several years, but the Internet giant is now tailoring Hangouts for business meetings.

Duo is being billed as a simpler, more reliable way to see friends and family as you talk to them.

It is the first of two new mobile apps that Google, owned by Alphabet Inc., has planned for this summer. The Mountain View company also is preparing to unveil a new messaging app called Allo featuring a robotic assistant that will suggest automated responses to texts.

ALSO

Snapchat may buy search app Vurb for more than $100 million

Ford will invest $75 million in California maker of sensors for self-driving cars

Virtual reality start-up hopes to turn customers into one-person movie studios