Last week we received an email from an eagle-eyed Gmail user pointing out a strange graphic that has appeared in the top-left hand corner of the application. The icon is a ten by ten pixel graphic with a diagonal line across it, with one half in black and the other in gray. It isn’t an inline image, as you can not highlite it or select it in your browser, nor right-click on it. There is also no reference to the image within the style sheet for Gmail.
All users of Firefox should be able to see the box on both Mac and Windows, and we tested across multiple versions of both the browser and operating systems.
In Firefox:
To add a strange twist, when viewed in Safari the graphic is slightly different – with only half of it loading and the colors being inverted (although it is the same dimensions as what is seen in Firefox).
In Safari:
Gmail is difficult to debug on the client-side because Gmail is written using the Google Web Toolkit, which outputs Javascript and CSS that isn’t really intended for human consumption (have a look at the CSS class names, or just the source to the main page itself as examples). There also isn’t a seperate HTTP request to an image that looks like the graphic that is displayed. When you load the DOM inspector, it shows that the graphic is being displayed inside of an IFRAME, and that frame contains some Javascript and simple XHTML.
Initially we suspected that the graphic may be rendered in SVG, a format that defines vector graphics in XML markup. The theory would be that Google is testing browser compatability for SVG across their user base – although there is no reason why they would run such a test for weeks. Google could be looking to develop a more advanced web interface for their applications in the future using SVG (considering they are squeezed between Flash and Silverlight at the moment).
There was a similar issue reported on a forum back in January of this year, and then it also specifically applied to Gmail (although it was a slightly different issue – see screenshot). This same issue was also recently covered and commented on at Google Blogoscoped. We contacted Google about this back on Wednesday, and we have only been told that they are getting back to us at some point with an official response.
The graphic looks like a “flip-page” graphic to me..like a bended page corner…if u know what I mean?
Hmmm
maybe it is just to look nice
Umm… Its an Iframe box at 1px width and height.
That is strange. I first noticed this too this morning. Now that I see it, I kinda bugs me. ;)
Woah… that’s spooky. seeing here on firefox too.
@3 – Agree, it definitely looks like an iframe. closer inspection reveals an emtpty (no href) iframe. Can anyone confirm that?
It’s the end of the world as we know it!
The Google Web Toolkit uses an iFrame to implement history functionality to get around the problems associated with Ajax and saving a pages state, but this is usually done invisibly to the user. Maybe it has something to do with that, and they’ve got a tiny bug with it?
Seen this for a while – using Firefox 2.0 – pretty sure I have seen it on more sites than just Gmail so assumed it was a Firefox bug…
It’s definitely coming from their “invisible” iframes. It looks like someone changed some styling recently and forgot to zero out the borders on their “invfr” class. What you’re seeing are the borders of a 0px tall, 0px wide iframe — several, actually, stacked in the upper left corner. This accounts for why the “graphics” look different in Firefox and Safari, since they render default iframe borders with different shades of gray.
Wasn’t expecting this on the Techcrunch “Enterprise IT” blog.
@12 you got it right …. save the the silly stuff for other blogs ….
As far as I’m aware Gmail is not written using Google Web Toolkit, or that has changed recently.
Going to reveal an updated UI
It’s a court ordered tracking widget that reports your IP address directly to Viacom.
In Firefox 3, if I refresh the page, the little graphic persists for a small while after the rest of the page has turned white but before the loading bar appears.
Google’s way of mourning?
It appears to be the all seeing Google eye.
They see everything.
Now you know ;)
I wonder if it is going to be a floating toolbar, so that it can be managed as a separate browser window, like how chat windows can be managed.
It’s the return of The Big Red Button That doesn’t do anything. Except this time, it’s disguised itself.
Oh, and of course. The link to it’s true nature.
http://www.pixelscapes.com/spatulacity/button.htm
Infact, if you create your own page like this:
and view it in Firefox 3/Safari, you will have your very own mysterious grey box! What you’re seeing is the artefact from the bevel, which explains it’s varying appearance.
Damn.. it didn’t appear.. it must have filtered out the HTML.
Try this: http://cameronharris.org/test.html
Mind Control. yes, definitely mind control.
It’s obviously working, it’s the only way someone could get the entire freakin’ world to
talk about a 10×10 square with absolutely no signifigance.
;)
part of google’s AB testing strategy. that’s what the next generation gmail will look like. simplicity .. you know
It’s a TRAP!!!!
Naw… as someone was saying, it stays for extra time when you refresh. I would assume that this is happening because the way gmail is made. Like… refreshing only parts of the screen when you press stuff, and this is either an unfix-able biproduct, or because of the same reason they are having trouble with it for some random reason they can’t find, so they just chose to put that picture/iframe there, to take up the space, and to be able to say that it was on purpose for athetics :D
Or ofcourse, it could have been implanted there for the very reason of giving us/you/them internet junkies something to wonder over :D
Again something reasonable. When you look at gmail in the ‘basic html view’ it doesn’t appear. So again I think it has to with the multi layer thing that gmail makes.
It seems like its supposed to give the page (or at least the top left corner) a rounded edge look.
It is a marker for their spiders to know which accounts have been crawled/surveyed and which have not. I’ve had Adwords showing up in foriegn languages in my gmail inbox since it appeared.
(I’ll take a men’s XL, thanks)
~Ed
From reading around the blogosphere it seems to be them playing with sounds.
Porter is 100% correct, it’s a big pig-pile of iframes (#js_frame, #hist_frame, and #sound_frame). Funny thing is that #canvas_frame has a frameborder of 0 set, but the others don’t.
Somebody probably forgot that browsers, by and large, get all confused and discombobulated when they see iframes, and don’t really pay attention to silly things like stylesheets.
See comments here: http://blogoscoped.com/forum/134961.html
I think its about:
10*10=100 G
Its is amount the space you well get in Googles Online storage account.
They will release the news 100 days after the day the 10*10 mystery revealed itself.
So the The Mysterious Grey Box On Gmail is about 100.
But i could be wrong.
so THATS where I left those pixels…dammit, i was looking all over my apartment, under my coffee table…couldnt find them anywhere
google must have stole them when i was sleeping and added to gmail…
whoever noticed this has WAY too much time on their hands btw =)
Its the portal to the Google Flux Time Capacitor — Highly credible sources tell us Google has created a way to travel through time via their unique application system. Currently it is only available through google maps, but plans to unveil a full-scale hardware version are in talks, sources say Microsoft has already announced its version, which will take you back to windows BEFORE it crashed every 10 minutes. Our source also tells us that Steve Balmer plans to use it to re-grow his ever-expanding bald spot.
Appears in Firefox! But in IE its clean!.
So some error in the css thing in which there is always a problem when we code for both IE and Firefox.
Google announced that they will be implementing Gmail Themes sooner or later right?
So I guess their working on it!. And that grey spot is caused due to the new css codes they should have added for testing.
it’s a click-behavior beacon. they’re watching you. they’re selling information about you. they’re making a lot of money from you. it’s just business.
on a serious note, i think it is a google radio — they are going to allow you to listen to music via gmail, and any other google system, are they going to take on pandora?
We will see…
Uhhh … seams like a tracking page, when I view the frame it loads on as:
http://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&view=bsp&ver=1qygpcgurkovy
And the source code shows as:
I think Google is using it to get better statistics for it’s websites.
Errr Seesimic filtered out the source code but you can view it at the link.
My guess is that this is somehow related to google labs. If you right click in the gray box, go down to “this frame”, then pick “frame info”, the media preview shows an image of the google labs icon. [This was done using firefox 3 browser]. And since no one ever noticed this before google labs was implemented in gmail…makes sense right?
Cameron nailed it in #24/#25. Move along now.
You’re all nuts.
It’s just a mini surveillance camera put there at Viacom’s request.
I know what it is…. and it’s big. You will be blown away when you will discover what it is…
Erm, I think your server time is wrong. I don’t think there’s any place in the world where it’s still July 5th. Course, it may be part of the conspiracy..
So anybody else also think its a extra-dimensional portal created by time and space overlapping and a CSS bug?
Angela Bennett is a computer expert working for Google. This young and beautiful analyst is never far from a computer and modem. The only activity she has outside of computers is visiting her mother. A friend, whom she’s only spoken to over the net and phone, Dale Hessman a former Yahoo exec now working for an internet security firm, sent her a program with a weird glitch for her to de-bug. That night, he left to meet her and was killed in a plane crash. Angela discovers secret information on the disk she has received only hours before she leaves for vacation. Her life then turns into a nightmare, her records are erased from existence and she is given a new identity, one with a police record. She struggles to find out why this has happened and who has it in for her.
I think Sandra Bullock would be a good in this movie.
It’s a new technology devised by Viacom. It’s actually a camera scoping out your office to see if you are viewing anything that has a copyright.
Is this a filler post or what? Go enjoy the weekend guys.
time to zip up…