The much anticipated 2-way whiteboard experience is rolling out to a Surface Hub near you! This update is post the Creators Update which was released a few weeks ago, and should be delivered via another Windows Update.
The new whiteboard is a vast improvement on the original. While 2-way collaboration is probably the biggest new feature, there are some other really neat features too!
Cool Stuff
The whiteboard recognises common shapes, turning your hand drawn art work in to perfect shapes. Additionally, you can draw perfect tables. There is also a handy ruler that provides information on the angle you are drawing at.
The pen experience has changed giving a wider selection of options, including a highlighter. The pen also responds to pressure; the more you apply the thicker the line.
Check it out:
Turn on the coolness
Some of this coolness needs to be turned on from the settings cog. This can be found at the bottom right of the whiteboard:
Sharing the whiteboard
To share the whiteboard you will need to sign in to the Whiteboard app and share a link to the other Surface Hubs that want to join the shared session. This experience is enabled via OneDrive and the whiteboard will be saved there.
Just in case you wonder, this is only supported on Surface Hub for now. You’ll get a cute message telling you so. Microsoft are working on extending this feature to all Windows 10 devices later this year:
Select “Sign in” from the top right:
A box will pop up, select “Sign in”:
Enter your credentials and then select “Start session”:
Next you need to share the link to the other Surface Hub devices that want to participate (hopefully this is automated in a future release). To do so, select the “Copy” button. For more information on this process you can click the information icon highlighted below:
Now open up the “Messages” tab from Skype and paste the link in. The far end can open the link which will take them to the shared whiteboard session:
And here it is in action! Note the avatar of the remote user, which is shown where they are currently writing:
