Google has bought Limes Audio, which makes tech to battle noise, distortion and echoes on video calls.
Photo by Nicole Cozma/CNET
Google has bought Limes Audio, a company with technology to improve sound quality in video calls, to improve its conferencing products like Hangouts, according to a blog post Thursday.
The tech giant said audio quality -- "so that you can hear the person you're talking to, and they can hear you" -- is critical as more businesses adopt its videoconferencing services like Chromebox for Meetings and Hangouts.
Limes Audio's technology removes noise, distortion and echoes, which should help with problems like conference rooms' acoustics and poor internet connections, the company said.
Google has been energetic about video chat lately. With products like Hangouts and Chromebox already in place, it launched another rival to Microsoft's Skype and Apple's FaceTime last year. Called Duo, the app allows one-to-one video calling and has quirky features like Knock Knock, which offers a video preview of who's calling you.